Orientalism’s ontological rigidity makes its fantasies nearly impossible to dismantle

Evidence

The trend toward the exotic was fueled by the growth of Romanticism, an artistic and philosophical movement of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The image of an exotic Orient associated with “sensuality, promise, terror, sublimity, idyllic pleasure, [and] intense energy” can be found in the works of musicians, painters, novelists, and philosophers from Mozart to Byron, Hugo, and Goethe. To be fair, the Romantics did not only look to the East for the exotic: they also looked to their own past, drawing from Gothic tales and stories of European barbarians. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 89 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Said held that Orientalism cannot be corrected by factual research because it is power. — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 205; Civilizational identity is fluid, not fixed or walled off — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 232; Orientalism ignores factual accuracy in favor of exotic horror (+13 more)

Related

• Romanticism projected an exotic Orientalist fantasy rather than accurate knowledge (similarity 0.93)
• Orientalism ignores factual accuracy in favor of exotic horror (similarity 0.92)
• Orientalist science masks an egoistic will to power (similarity 0.91)
• Romantic adventurers challenged the institutional authority of professional Orientalists. (similarity 0.90)
• Romantic restorative reconstruction shaped Orientalist writing’s form and intent (similarity 0.89)
• Said held that Orientalism cannot be corrected by factual research because it is power. (similarity 0.88)
• Orientalism reflects the producing culture rather than its putative object (similarity 0.87)
• Travelers’ firsthand experience could not overturn their Orientalist fantasies (similarity 0.86)
• Orientalist doctrine attributes untruthfulness to a racialized Oriental mind (similarity 0.85)
• Orientalism undermines the possibility of nonpolitical scholarship. (similarity 0.85)
• Eighteenth-century France romanticized exotic others as noble (similarity 0.85)
• Orientalist writings assumed the Orient was inferior and childlike (similarity 0.85)
• The word ‘Oriental’ alone invoked a fixed, unchallengeable body of knowledge (similarity 0.85)
• Author Beckford lived out Orientalist fantasy by renaming his estate Baghdad (similarity 0.85)
• A novel can cite Orientalist cliches while undermining their authority through an unreliable focalizer. (similarity 0.85)

Broader Connections

• Ideologies connect to subjects through contingent, breakable articulations rather than necessity #contradicts (0.80)
• Romanticism projected an exotic Orientalist fantasy rather than accurate knowledge #expands (0.75) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 89
• A novel can cite Orientalist cliches while undermining their authority through an unreliable focalizer. #qualifies (0.60)