When Edward Said's "Orientalism" was first
published in 1978 it drew heavy attention and controversy due to its attack on
not only the ground assumptions of the academic field of oriental studies, but
on the whole manner in which East and West are portrayed. Said's Orientalism deals
with the Western structuring of the orient as "other". Said analyses
central Western texts in order to account for the way the conception of The
East was crystallized. This conception, according to Said, prepared the ground
for the political and cultural occupation of the non-Western regions by the
West.
Said's analysis in Orientalism relies heavily on the
thought of Michel Foucault
and especially his thoughts on the concept of discourse and the knowledge/power equation.
Another intellectual influence found in Orientalism is the concept of Hegemony derived from the philosophy of Antonio Gramsci. Using this terminology Said
shows how Orientalism served as a system of representations which served to
consolidate the West's authority and supremacy over the East, and not just to
reflect or describe it. Like Foucault, Said ties images, ideas and texts to
actual practices of government and subjection employed in order to control
millions of people in the non-white world.
One of the main implications of Said's work is that even and
maybe especially scholarly research about the orient (naively called Oreintalism
before Said) is in fact deeply political in being an essential part of the
imperialist mechanism of control and exploitation.
The main importance of Said's Orientalism is in pointing
out the even though colonialism is allegedly over, the systems of thinking,
talking and representing which form the basis of colonial power relations still
persist. Said's book became a central text of post colonialism since it seeks
to expose the fundamental principles and structures of colonialism embedded
within different systems of knowledge and representation.
Here is a detailed summary by chapter of Said's
Orientalism:
Introduction to Orientalism
Chapter 1: The Scope of Orientalism
Chapter 2: Orientalist Structures and Restructures
Chapter 3 : Orientalism Now
Introduction to Orientalism
Chapter 1: The Scope of Orientalism
Chapter 2: Orientalist Structures and Restructures
Chapter 3 : Orientalism Now
Get the books:
