A scholar could enter Orientalism for aesthetic obscurity rather than imperial purpose
Evidence
By contrast with these committed left-wing Orientalists, the Arabist André Miquel (b. 1929) chose Arabic on aesthetic grounds. As a schoolboy, he decided that he wanted to work in a field that was obscure and marginal, in which he could peacefully do research and publish. So he taught himself Arabic. Since there were few university teaching posts in his chosen field, he initially worked as a representative of French culture in Ethiopia and Egypt (and during the latter stint, he spent five months in prison as a suspected spy). — Robert Irwin, For Lust of Knowing, 462
Categorization
- QUESTION: Whether scholarly career motives could ever be truly apolitical given colonial embedding is worth chasing later.
- XREF: connects to: Cultural Orientalism was admiring and varied, unlike institutional Orientalism that served colonialism.