Orientalist scholarship cannot be detached from its imperial context

Evidence

This false position hides historical change. Even more important, from my standpoint, it hides the interests of the Orientalist. Those, despite attempts to draw subtle distinctions between Orientalism as an innocent scholarly endeavor and Orientalism as an accomplice to empire, can never unilaterally be detached from the general imperial context that begins its modern global phase with Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt in 1798. — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 840

Categorization

• XREF: The dated anchor — Napoleon’s 1798 invasion — grounds the modern imperial phase that later readings situate Orientalism within. — connects to: Orientalist ideas can circulate without imperial power structures; No foundational critique links historicism’s growth to imperialist practice. — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures, 712
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: how scholars since Said have tried, and failed, to detach ‘innocent’ orientalism from imperial complicity — methodological debate carries into later modules.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 840