Edward Said's Orientalism

Edward Said's Orientalism, published in 1978, is a critical study and evaluation of the intellectual conventions which Westerners have created to describe the East. The following essay will examine some major reviews of Said's work, but in order to place these reviews in perspective, it is necessary to say something of Said's work itself.

That the East (and its opposite, West) are in this context almost instantly recognizable is itself a demonstration in microcosm of Said's central proposition. The only ambiguities, for the American reader, are whether the terms refer to internal American geography, or perhaps to "West" and "East" in the Cold War sense. Once these alternatives are disposed of the reader knows at once that what is intended is a distinction between a cultural "West," incorporating Europe and North America, and a cultural "East" extending from the Arab world (part of which, Morocco, is actually farther west than any part of Europe) on to China and Japan. In short, the West and East of which Kipling said "never the twain shall meet."

More specifically, Said is writing about Western conventions in dealing with the Arab and Islamic worlds, the "Middle East" in conventional American usage. Said observes that to Americans, Orient refers primarily to East Asia, mainly China and Japan (1978, p. 1), but Orientalism, devoted primarily to the Arab-Islamic world, secondarily to India, and only least to the Far East, is a long-standing usage in the Western intellec

Related Essays

Perception of Arabs .... As Edward Said wrote about media discourses of Arabs during this era .... when portrayals in the US media romanticize Orientalism and Arabs .... Deziel, S. (Sep 24, 2001). .... (1242 5 )

Perception of Arabs in the US Media .... As Edward Said wrote about media discourses of Arabs during this era .... when portrayals in the US media romanticize Orientalism and Arabs .... Deziel, S. (Sep 24, 2001). .... (1242 5 )

Film Depictions of Arabs Edward Said and others write about the issue of Orientalism .... These changed manifestatons of Orientalism show that certain .... of a relatively few clich?s, such as .... (2754 11 )

Women's Rights and Empowerment .... lin Lim, S. and Spencer, NA (eds.). One World Literature. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company, pp. 25-40. Windschuttle, K. "Edward Said's Orientalism Revisited .... (2105 8 )

India and British Rule .... these Lohars [blacksmiths] almost all other cast[e]s, sects and .... also consistent with a more general point about Orientalism, that it .... Said, Edward W. Orientalism .... (2124 8 )

The Harem During the 19th Century .... However, the greatest abuses of the harem setting are said to have occurred in .... Goodall, John S. Victorians Abroad. .... New York: Dodd, Mead Lane, Edward Williams. .... (5043 20 )

rk today, poisoning public and private, popular and academic attitudes in ways which Said documents at length" (1979). The "anthology of overbearing observations, analyses, and 'explanations' of non-European cultures ... makes for painful reading" (1979). In fact, the Western reader will find much to be embarrassed about, or worse, in Said's pages. The most damning critique of Said's book simply as a book, and one substantially borne out by reading it, is in Plumb's New York Times Book Review piece. "It is a pity that [Said's book] is so pretentiously written, so drenched in jargon" (1979). In fact, by Page 3 of the text, Said tells us that he is employing "Michel Foucault's notion of a discourse," without ever telling us just what this notion is (1978). Foucault and discourse theory are prominent in contemporary literary studies, and have spread to other disciplines as well. However, the educated but nonspecialist public is likely to be hazy at best on these concepts, and in general much of the book has a turgid style conforming all too well to the negative stereotype of literary theory. Fortunately, as Plumb also notes, Said often departs from this style: "When Mr. Said is doing a hatchet job ... he is a different wri

Category: Foreign - E