Orientalism expanded by scope, not selectiveness, across centuries.
Evidence
The rule in its historical development as an academic discipline has been its increasing scope, not its greater selectiveness. Renaissance Orientalists like Erpenius and Guillaume Postel were primarily specialists in the languages of the Biblical provinces, although Postel boasted that he could get across Asia as far as China without needing an interpreter. By and large, until the mid-eighteenth century Orientalists were Biblical scholars, students of the Semitic languages, Islamic specialists, or, because the Jesuits had opened up the new study of China, Sinologists. The whole middle expanse of Asia was not academically conquered for Orientalism until, during the later eighteenth century, Anquetil-Duperron and Sir William Jones were able intelligibly to reveal the extraordinary riches of Avestan and Sanskrit. — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 149
Categorization
- DEFINE: Shows the historical expansion of Orientalism’s disciplinary scope — a key part of the toolkit’s definition of the field.
- corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 149
- XREF: connects to: Distant ancient Eastern history clarifies repeated modern trends; Orientalism is unique historically yet shares modern knowledge’s ordinary assumptions.; Modern Orientalism expanded representational range after the late eighteenth century (+5 more)
- yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Distant ancient Eastern history clarifies repeated modern trends; Orientalism is unique historically yet shares modern knowledge’s ordinary assumptions.; Modern Orientalism expanded representational range after the late eighteenth century (+5 more)
Broader Connections
- Modern Orientalism is defined by expanded representational range, not greater accuracy
#corroborates(0.95) — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 90 - Modern Orientalism expanded representational range after the late eighteenth century
#expands(0.93)