ENGL 350 Lecture 14: Orientalism By Edward Said
Document Summary
Spent most of his life in the middle east and was british-educated. The orient was almost a european invention, and had been since antiquity a place of romance, exotic beings, haunting memories and landscapes, remarkable experiences. -> representing middle eastern cultures through a european perspective. All this attributes to the justification of slavery and colonization. Definition and characterizations: a wa(cid:455) of (cid:272)o(cid:373)i(cid:374)g to ter(cid:373)s with the orie(cid:374)t that is (cid:271)ased o(cid:374) the orie(cid:374)t"s spe(cid:272)ial pla(cid:272)e i(cid:374) europea(cid:374) In addition, the orient has helped to define europe (or the west) as its contrasting image, idea, personality, experience. Yet none of this orient is merely imaginative. The orient is an integral part of european material civilization and culture. Orient than it is as a veridic discourse about the orient (which is what, in its academic or scholarly form, it claims to be).
