Orientalism

Undergraduate / Graduate

In 1978, Edward Said transformed "Orientalism" from a somewhat innocent term for a fascination with the cultures of the Orient into a label for a "discursive formation" that systematically objectified, essentialized, and distorted the non-West in the service of Western ideology and power. His intervention provoked a number of responses: some critiqued the critique, on empirical or theoretical grounds; some extended his analysis, which was based primarily on the Middle East, to other "Orients"; some argued that his critique did not go far enough. We will examine Said's Orientalism, some important precursors in the critique of Orientalist knowledge, and a selection of responses to Said's work, with a focus on theoretical questions. Why do the overarching structures of knowledge change so slowly when it comes to the non-West, and why, at the same time, does "knowledge" about the non-West appear so compromised when we examine it a century or so after it is produced? What are the rules of the "discursive formation" Said claimed to have identified? On what basis can a critique of an entire "way of knowing" be justified and undertaken? How does Orientalism reframe the Baconian cliché that "knowledge is power"? In the end, what is the epistemic and political status of "knowledge of the non-West"?