Said defined Orientalism as scholarship tied to governing the Middle East
Evidence
Said defines Orientalism in several ways. First, he defines Orientalism as the study of “the Orient,” – by which he means the Middle East – by the scholars and state agents engaged with governing the region and peoples. More relevant to the argument are his second and third definitions. — Cyra Akila Choudhury, Racecraft and Identity in the Emergence…, 205
Categorization
Category: Definitional Content
- DEFINE: Restates Said’s core definitional framework for Orientalism, the conceptual basis for the chapter’s genealogical strand.
Related
- Said defines Orientalism as a Western instrument for dominating the Orient (similarity 0.90)
- Western scholars controlled the academic study of the Orient even as late as 1927. (similarity 0.90)
- Western scholarship constructed the East as savage to justify imperial conquest. (similarity 0.89)
- Orient studies served Europe’s needs, not Asia’s reality (similarity 0.89)
- Said defines Orientalism as a disciplined matrix of dreams, images, and vocabularies (similarity 0.88)
- Europeans claimed to possess the Orient’s souls beyond territorial power (similarity 0.88)
- For imperial discourse, knowledge of the Orient constitutes power over it (similarity 0.88)
- The Westerner’s intimate estrangement from the Orient reinforces the Orientalist discourse built on it. (similarity 0.88)
- Said’s Orientalism targets the Middle East, not the Far East. (similarity 0.88)
- Said’s Orientalism changed the meaning of ‘Orientalism’ from benevolent human interest in the East to an apparatus of knowledge and writing aligned with western imperial power. (similarity 0.88)
- Orientalism’s essentialism hides both historical change and the Orientalist’s interests (similarity 0.87)
- British control of the Orient depended on constantly refined knowledge of it (similarity 0.87)
- The Orientalist’s constructed Orient displaced the actual Orient in European discourse (similarity 0.87)
- Orientalism is a political doctrine imposed because the Orient was weaker (similarity 0.87)
- Orientalism operates as both an academic discipline and a repository of cultural images (similarity 0.87)
Broader Connections
- Orientalism functioned to produce the West rather than describe the East
#expands(0.85) - Orientalism expanded from scholarly practice to signify imperialist ideology
#expands(0.85) - Orientalism scholarship shifted to a functionalist definition centered on domination
#expands(0.85) - Said defines Orientalism as a Western instrument for dominating the Orient
#expands(0.80) — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 59 - Orientalism metamorphosed from scholarly discourse into an imperial institution
#expands(0.80) — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 265 - Orientalist scholarship is inseparable from imperial power and its orthodox attitudes
#expands(0.80) — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 292 - Orientalism is knowledge that disciplines its object through dominating frameworks
#expands(0.75) - Postwar postcolonial critiques transformed Orientalism’s meaning from scholarship into ideology of empire
#expands(0.75) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 177 - Said defines Orientalism as a disciplined matrix of dreams, images, and vocabularies
#expands(0.75) — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 607