Said’s own theory of representation contradicts his book’s accumulated negative detail about Orientalist depictions.

Evidence

This is puzzling, to say the least. If representation operates in the manner Said himself describes—a matter, I think, now generally agreed upon—then why should a substantial part of the book be dedicated to a repetitive detailing of the Orientalists’ negative depictions of the Orient and Islam, including the reduction of the object of study (Orient, Islam, Arabs, and so on) into essences, which Said—in opposition to what he says in the quoted paragraph—spends a good deal of time detailing? — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 120

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: Hallaq exposes an internal tension: if misrepresentation is just what representation does, then the cataloguing of Orientalist distortions loses its indicting force — a genuine hermeneutic paradox worth sitting with.