Post-1945 critics transformed Orientalism from scholarship into a concept of imperial institution

Evidence

During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the Orientalists became a more serious quantity, because by then the reaches of imaginative and actual geography had shrunk, because the Oriental-European relationship was determined by an unstoppable European expansion in search of markets, resources, and colonies, and finally, because Orientalism had accomplished its self-metamorphosis from a scholarly discourse to an imperial institution. — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 265 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

First, let us dispose of any doubt that Said’s concept of Orientalism was almost wholly framed in conventional political terms. In the entirety of the book, and invariably in all discourses on Orientalism after the book appeared in print, the reference to Orientalism was couched almost wholly in political, if not politicized, terms. Orientalism and charges of Orientalism and Orientalizing remained prisoner to representationalism, descriptivism, and the political and even ethnic, nationalist, and religious position or affiliation of the writer. But in all of this, the core conditions of felicity and their real underpinnings were entirely absent from the scene. Orientalism is often reduced to what you do not like about another scholar’s work, and it made the charge all the more easy if that scholar was not an Oriental or a Muslim. — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 136 (#qualifies, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Orientalism expanded from scholarly practice to signify imperialist ideology; Orientalism’s meaning shifted after post-war deconolization critiques; Postwar postcolonial critiques transformed Orientalism’s meaning from scholarship into ideology of empire (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• Postwar postcolonial critiques transformed Orientalism’s meaning from scholarship into ideology of empire #corroborates (1.00)
• Orientalism metamorphosed from scholarly discourse into an imperial institution #corroborates (0.95) — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 265
• Orientalism criticism became a politicized ad hominem charge, not an epistemic critique #qualifies (0.80) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 136
• Orientalist scholarship is inseparable from imperial power and its orthodox attitudes #expands (0.75) — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 292
• Postwar hostility to Orientalism grew from political conflict, not scholarship defects #qualifies (0.75) — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 2073