Critical Analysis of ‘Orientalism’ by Edward Said

Edward Said a cultural critic and social commentator, believed to be highly significant and at times a controversial figure. His book ‘Orientalism’ one part of a trilogy of books is one of his most famous pieces of work and is also highly significant in post-colonial literature having made such an impact causing large numbers of new studies based on it (Kennedy, V, 2013). Said was born in November 1935, in Talbiya, West Jerusalem which was then British mandate Palestine. His family left Jerusalem for good before the war between Palestine and Israel in 1947, moving to Cairo which was short-lived as he then moved to the USA and settled there completing his secondary education. Said then went on to become a university professor of English and comparative literate at Columbia University. However, due to the ongoing conflict of Palestine and Israel Said began to feel alienated as an American citizen and a Palestinian Arab. Leading Said to a transition within his choice of work as he saw how interlinked politics and literature were and how beneficial his personal experience and understanding could be, he became a political commentator (Kennedy, V, 2013).

Said’s book Orientalism is believed to have revolutionised the post-colonial field and its understanding of the discourse of the middle east and in general the “other”. Being translated into 28 different languages and is required reading at many colleges and universities. Said was also influenced by other prominent writers such as Michel Foucault and Antonio Gramsci. Both admiring and criticising them, using similarities in his work as them too. As much as he was praised Said was equally heavily criticised as he challenged the dominant ideology of the west.

Only a handful of books have impacted as many fields as dramatically as Edward Said’s Orientalism (Guhin, J. and Wyrtzen, J., 2013). Orientalism is and has many meanings and involves several overlapping aspects. Firstly, the ever-changing 4000-year-old historical and cultural relationship between Europe and Asia. Secondly, the scientific disciple in the west according to which beginning in the early nineteenth century one specialised in the study of various oriental cultures and traditions, and third the ideological suppositions, images, and fantasies about a region of the world called the orient.

Said gave three definitions of orientalism 1. ‘‘anyone who teaches, writes about, or researches the Orient’’ (Said 2003:2). 2nd, Orientalism is ‘‘a style of thought based upon an ontological and epistemological distinction made between ‘the Orient’ and (most of the time) ‘the Occident’’’ (Said 2003:2). And third, roughly since the late 18th century, Orientalism has referred to the ‘‘corporate institution for dealing with the Orient—dealing with it by making statements about it, authorizing views of it, describing it, by teaching it, settling it, and ruling over it: in short, Orientalism as a Western-style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient’’ (Said 2003:3). Each of these definitions engages distinct, if inseparable, aspects of his argument: the question of fields of knowledge, the question of representation, and the question of empire. Let me begin with the second, which, for many readers—and certainly in the discipline of anthropology—was and remains the most important contribution of Said’s book (Abu El‐Haj, N., 2005).

Orientalism came to represent a construct, not a reality, a symbol of authority and a weapon of power, losing its status as a sympathetic concept, a product of scholarly admiration for diverse and exotic cultures and became the literary means of creating a stereotypical and mythic east through which European rule could be more readily asserted (MacKenzie, J. and MacKenzie, J.M. 1995). Orientalism has changed over the past twenty years, with the word always having a multiplicity of meanings (MacKenzie, J. and MacKenzie, J.M. 1995). Traditionally, however, the word was associated with the study of languages, literature, religions, thought, art, and social life of the east to make them available to the west even to protect them from occidental cultural arrogance in the age of imperialism(MacKenzie, J. and MacKenzie, J.M. 1995).

Edward said subtitled his work orientalism, the western conceptualisation of orientalism suggesting a new conceptualisation of orientalism (Habib, I., 2005). Further going on to say, “The Orient was almost a European invention, and had been since antiquity a place of romance, exotic beings, haunting memories and landscapes, remarkable experiences. Now it was disappearing” (p23, orientalism). In the 18th century, the “orient” was praised and seen as exotic, however, in the 19th-century things changed

“This Orientalism] is something more historically and materially defined than either of the two. Taking the late eighteenth century as a very roughly defined starting point Orientalism can be discussed and analyzed as the corporate institution for dealing with the Orient—dealing with it by making statements about it, authorizing views of it, describing it, by teaching it, settling it, ruling over it: in short, Orientalism as a Western-style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient” (Said, 2003: 3) (Güven, F).

Timothy Brennan claims Said “translated it [counter-tradition] into a particular idiom (2008:4)

Which led to a challenge of what literature and discourse were currently being consumed and turned out, with orientalism being part of that. Thus, creating an interrogation of western discourse on the ‘other’ which began the field of study known as “postcolonialism” (Hamdi, T.K., 2013).

Save your time!
We can take care of your essay

• Proper editing and formatting
• Free revision, title page, and bibliography
• Flexible prices and money-back guarantee

Place Order

Orientalism is still relevant today gaining much attention and being a source of inspiration for those who think outside the box to develop a new angle within the field of research. Orientalism unveiled the essentialist and western-centric biases within many scholar's approaches regarding the orient displaying the power of the cliched and deep-rooted views of the ‘oriental other’ within western thoughts, with embedded imperial and colonial politics (Farris S. R. (2010). Said also destroyed the supposed myths of the orient which had been made famous by western and colonial literature, European social sciences, which further outlines the Eurocentric nature within discourse regarding the non-European ‘other’ (Farris S. R. (2010).

The American political scientist Samuel p, Huntington believed “The great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural. Nation-states will remain the most powerful actors in world affairs, but the principal conflicts of global politics will occur between nations and groups of different civilizations. The clash of civilizations will dominate global politics” (Samuel P. Huntington 1993). This supports Said as the clash of civilisation is based around culture. Samuel further went on to say “During the cold war the world was divided into the First, Second, and Third Worlds. Those divisions are no longer relevant. It is far more meaningful now to group countries not in terms of their political or economic systems or in terms of their level of economic development but rather in terms of their culture and civilization” (Samuel P. Huntington 1993).

Said also was inspired by Antonio Gramsci’s critique of imperialistic history, including US global interventions, in culture and imperialism (San Juan, Jr, E., 2006). Said has frankly attacked doctrinaire Marxists while invoking the examples of Gramsci (San Juan, Jr, E., 2006). In Culture and imperialism, Said uses Gramsci and C.L.R. James, which gave an aura of leftism to his text (San Juan, Jr, E., 2006).

Gramsci is referred to in connection with an intellectual vocation, with Yeats’s poetry, and in the Indian subaltern studies group, however it is in the way said appropriates and re-tools Gramsci’s notion of hegemony that is symptomatic of a syncretizing, co-optative intention (San Juan, Jr, E., 2006).

Michel Foucault is a post-structuralist is another person who inspired Said. With recurring themes being found in his works, relating to culture, reality, literature, imagination, critical conscience, and intellectual practice. Said admired and criticised him (Chuaqui, R., 2005). Said has been accredited with playing a key role in introducing Michel Foucault's work to academics in the united states (Racevskis, K., 2005). Said’s application of Michel Foucault’s methodology within his textual analysis of western historical interpretation of the orient has often been poorly interpreted (Turner, B., 2004). However, the main similarity between Said and Foucault is the idea of discourse. Discourse shapes the way we see things in the world which can be applied to orientalism this is because essentially it says we see the East in a certain way because they these “truths”. Discourse is the same as a discursive formation which was a Foucault idea used by Said, within his book as orientalism is a form of discourse.

Said’s main argument within orientalism was threefold, firstly the intimate relationship between western knowledge and its will to power over the rest of the world. Also, the necessarily interdisciplinary nature of colonial discourse analysis and on the continuing influence of earlier traditions of orientalism on current politics in the middle east (Said, E, 1997). Arguing that the representation of other cultures, societies, histories and the relationship between power and knowledge, the role of intellectual; the methodology questions that have to do with the relationship between different kinds of texts, between text and context, between text and history. (Said, E, 1997). These are the questions Said is eluding to which is and has been unchallenged hence the importance of his work.

Said’s interpretation within his book of the relationship between colonial empires and their forms of knowledge has created a new dynamic of discourse. Said’s stated that orientalism shows “the pattern of imperial culture (Said 1993:xii) which made conceivable, even acceptable, imperial visions of the Arab–Muslim East a place which needed intervention, space fundamentally, even incommensurably, different from the West deeming it necessary for change and to be made in the image of European civilization (Abu El‐Haj, N., 2005). He states ‘‘Orientalism once again raises the question of whether modern imperialism ever ended, or whether it as continued in the Orient since Napoleon’s entry into Egypt two centuries ago” (2003:xxi–xxii). Questioning whether there is modern imperialism is one of the reasons Said is seen as a controversial figure especially as someone who lives in the west.

In Said’s words, ‘‘For all its worldly reference [Orientalism] is still a book about culture, ideas, history, and power’’ (2003:xvii). Here he explains the meaning of what he is implying within his book, which as he said is about culture, ideas, history, and power. How cultures are seen differently I.e. Arabs, how their ideas, history, and power are perceived. As James Clifford writes, Orientalism raises ‘‘a substantial, and disquieting, set of questions about the nature of cross-cultural discourses generally. At issue are the ways in which distinct groups of humanity (however defined) imagine, describe, and comprehend each other’’ (1980:209)

‘‘The key theoretical issue raised by Orientalism concerns the status of all forms of thought and representation for dealing with the alien. Can one ultimately escape procedures of dichotomizing, restructuring, and textualizing in the making of interpretive statements about foreign cultures and traditions? If so, how?’’ (1980:209–210). The ‘‘alien,’’ the ‘‘foreign’’—at other times, the ‘‘exotic’’

(Clifford 1980:205)—those are the terms most appropriate to a reading of Orientalism that focuses on the question of cross-cultural understanding and representation as a general, or universal, problem (Abu El‐Haj, N., 2005). So, the main arguments Said was trying to make were the representation of the “other” in this case the orient. How their culture, ideas, history is perceived. Also, the discourse used to represent the orient, which for the middle east is negative, exotic, feminine, and barbaric. Moreover, how western society can also dominate the orient, whom they believe is inferior to them, and a societyculture which needs westernising.