Orientalism ignores factual accuracy in favor of exotic horror

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 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Orientalist writings assumed the Orient was inferior and childlike — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 206; Romanticism projected an exotic Orientalist fantasy rather than accurate knowledge — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 89; Orientalism’s ontological rigidity makes its fantasies nearly impossible to dismantle (+5 more)

Related

• Orientalism’s ontological rigidity makes its fantasies nearly impossible to dismantle (similarity 0.92)
• Romanticism projected an exotic Orientalist fantasy rather than accurate knowledge (similarity 0.90)
• Orientalist science masks an egoistic will to power (similarity 0.88)
• Orientalist writings assumed the Orient was inferior and childlike (similarity 0.87)
• Romantic restorative reconstruction shaped Orientalist writing’s form and intent (similarity 0.87)
• Romantic adventurers challenged the institutional authority of professional Orientalists. (similarity 0.86)
• Travelers’ firsthand experience could not overturn their Orientalist fantasies (similarity 0.86)
• Said held that Orientalism cannot be corrected by factual research because it is power. (similarity 0.84)
• Orientalism reflects the producing culture rather than its putative object (similarity 0.83)
• Orientalist doctrine attributes untruthfulness to a racialized Oriental mind (similarity 0.83)
• Enlightenment science and Romanticism both renewed medieval Muslim-monster fantasies rather than ending them (similarity 0.83)
• Orientalism sustains the credibility of preexisting Muslim monster images (similarity 0.83)
• Orientalist painters invented imagery of Eastern despotism they never witnessed (similarity 0.82)
• Orientalist exoticism and horror are two poles of one manufactured image (similarity 0.82)
• European representation of the Orient outweighs actual Oriental lived experience (similarity 0.82)

Broader Connections

• Travelers’ firsthand experience could not overturn their Orientalist fantasies #corroborates (0.75)
• Romanticism projected an exotic Orientalist fantasy rather than accurate knowledge #corroborates (0.70) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 89
• Islamic exoticism differs from other cultures’ by being shadowed by threat #expands (0.70)
• The Muslim in Gothic horror is damned for sexual sin in an Oriental setting #exemplifies (0.65)
• Oriental villains shaped the Muslim monsters of Gothic horror #exemplifies (0.60)
• Orientalism’s ontological rigidity makes its fantasies nearly impossible to dismantle #qualifies (0.50)