Said wonders how this project may serve to challenge these forces and change them for good.Įdward Said’s book Orientalism is about the power of Western countries (the Occident) over non-Western countries (the Orient). Furthermore, while Orientalism had operated previously as part of a conservative agenda, it is now propelled by Western liberals to involve themselves in every aspect of non-Western countries. political influence, the image and symbol of Islam pervades American popular culture. The author offers a detailed analysis of Orientalism in the present day.
The study of the Orient was necessary to stabilize Western society after what appeared to be complicated interactions with Eastern cultures. While various European countries had different cultural and political investments in the Orient, they shared similar values when studying it. Over the past two centuries, there has been a formalized discipline of Orientalism. These ideas about Islam populated various cultural works in the West with Arab and Islamic stereotypes that portrayed Arabs as different, fearsome, sinful, or inferior to Europeans.
This has led people to believe that there is a known Islam available for general Western imagination. He shows how philology and anthropology have encouraged Western writers to study Islam as a science of observation and description of objective reality. In the second chapter, Said continued his discussion of Orientalism by analyzing several cultural texts. The more complicated the Orient becomes for him while doing this research work on it, the more motivated he is to study it even further. However, as there is cultural diversity in the Orient, political nuance, and geographical expanse involved with this topic, he constantly returns to these ideas by studying them through his scholarship and political intervention. In the book, Said talks about Orientalism and how it’s a historical practice of consolidating knowledge about the Orient into forms that can be studied and conveyed to a Western audience.
It also examines how the Orient is viewed as a place of mystery and danger that needs to be tamed by Occidentals.
1-Page Summary of Orientalism Overall SummaryĮdward Said’s book Orientalism explores the relationship between East and West, specifically how Western dominance in academia has shaped public policy about Asia and the Middle East.
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