Orientalism Flashcards
What’s orientalism?
A way of coming to terms with the Orient that is based on the Orient’s special place in European Western experience.
Subregions of Subsaharan Africa
West Africa
East Africa
Central Africa
Southern Africa
Edward Said
Palestinian-born linguist from the US
1978 published book Orientalism
1993 Culture and imperialism - where he offered a broader analysis of his earlier thesis.
Aspects of the contemporarity reality
- Distintion between pure and political knowledge: Orientalism is a considerable dimension of modern political-intellectual culture.
2.The methological question:
How does Said define Orientalism?
Academic activity
A style of thought (orient/occident or east/west)
A corporate institution for dealing with Orient (a discours in the Foucaldian sense)
Three warning about Said’s thesis?
The Orient actually exists
The idea of the orient is linked to power
Orientalism is not a bunch of lies, but professional knowledge, about the Orient.
What’s Said’s main objetive in his book?
To reveal the orient as a particular instance of Western imagination to become aware of its political implications.
How does Said pursue his objetive? What’s his methology?
Analysis of especially 19th century writers (poest and novelist) from France and Great Britain.
What are the methodolodical challenges (two fears) inherent to Said’s study?
Inaccuracy by generalization.
Distortion by concentration.
How does he deal with those problems (three aspectos of his contemporary reality)?
Distintion between puro and political knowledge.
The metodological question (strategic location and strategic formation)
The personal dimension.
Peripheral Orientalism
A distintive Latin American view of the Orient
Sources of Latin American Orientalism
Chronicles of Latin American travellers to the Orient in the 19th century.
Westens cultura heritage in terms of science and the arts.
Recurrence of Spanish orientalism after the Reconquista of the Iberian peninsula between 711 and 1492 AD.
Interaction and exchange with migran communition from the Middle East (Syrians, Lebanese, Palestians).
Influence of contemporary imperial culture, especially pop culture.
Anti-orientalism in Latin America
We are such as sterotyped according to Orientalis assumptions: not fully modern, ungovernable, anarchic.
An identity (Western civilization’s other) becomes especially important in the context of global struggles against imperialism and colonialism, and in favor of nationalism.
