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Orientalism
- the European invention of the Orient
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a way of coming to terms with the Orient, based on the Orient’s special place in European Western experience
- carried out specially by the French and British (less so by other central European countries)
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Significance of the Orient for Europe:
- is adjacent to Europe place of the oldest and richest of European colonies
- source of its civilizations and languages
- cultural contestant
- deep and recurring image of the Other
- helped define Europe by contrast
- part of European material civilization and culture
- expressed culturally and ideologically as mode of discourse, with supporting institutions, vocabulary, scolarship, etc.
- American understanding of the Orient is less dense but that is changing
- thus Orientalism means several interdependent things
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Meanings of Orientalism
- Orientalism’s most accepted designation is academic
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in relationship to this meaning there is also a more general one, a style of thought based upon the distinction between the Orient and the Occident
- these distinctions have been the starting point of many literary works, theories, political accounts, etc.
- The interchange between these two meanings is constant
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Third meaning:
- more historically and materially defined
- since the 18th cent.
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corporate institution of dealing with the Orient: as Western style for dominating, restructuring and having authority over the Orient.
- Foucault’s notion of discourse is useful: without examining Orientalism as discourse it is not possible to understand how European culture managed and produced the Orient in its many facets after Enlightenment
- Europe strengthened itself and its identity by setting itself off against the Orient
- Mainly French and British enterprise, but since the WWII America has dominated the Orient and approache sit simlarly
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Said studies Orientalism and its ideas despite or beyond its correspondence with or lack thereof with the real Orient
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The Orient was Orientalized because it could be submitted/made Oriental
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Orientalism is not just a fantasy but a created body of theory and practice on which continued investment has been made. It cannot be dissipated just like that.
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Gramsci: distinction between civil (voluntary or consensual affiliations) and political (institutions which exert domination on the public) society
- culture, in a non-totalitarian society, is to be found in the first
- there are cultural forms which lead over the others, these constitute hegemony
- Hegemony gives Orientalism its strength and durability
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the major component of European culture is its identity being superior to the non-European offense
- this is what made European culture hegemonic in and outside Europe.
- In addition, hegemony of European ideas about the Orient: European’s superiority over Oriental backwardness
- Orientalism depends on this superiority: many possible relationships between the West and east, but never losing the upper hand.
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Methodological difficulties