RELG 353 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Arthur Schopenhauer, Indian Nationalism, Essentialism

• School: McGill University
• Department: Religious Studies
• Course: RELG 353
• Professor: Michael Gollner

Document Summary

Earliest meaning: orientalist scholarship and admin policy of east india. Orientalist scholarship: scholarship of asian texts, languages and cultural traditions by westerners. Lead to large interest in eastern ideas e. g. bg and upanishads and influence thinkers like thoreau or schopenhauer over it. Essentialist representation: focuses on one aspect of a culture as the essential. Not just scholarship that contributed to western imperialism but was also. Admin policy: some of the ppl who subsidized early orientalist scholarship were the same ppl who wanted to control india for economic reasons and believed that to control a place you had to understand the culture. Another definition of orientalism: edward said"s orientalism. Said focuses on connection between knowledge of the (cid:498)orient(cid:499) and power particular representations of the (cid:498)oriental(cid:499) Western imperialism perpetuated by and relied on (cid:498)essentialist representations(cid:499) feature (sort of like a stereotype) e. g. (cid:498)the mystic east(cid:499) or (cid:498)irrational religions(cid:499) or (cid:498)uncivilized india(cid:499) needs western rule to become civilized.