My blog: Orientalism by Edward Said

Hello readers!

This blog is a part of my classroom activity in which students have to write on the interview of Edward Said about Orientalism. And gave the summary view of what they have to understand.

On 'Orientalism': Edward Said

Executive Producer & Director: Sut Jhally

Producer & Editor: Sanjay Talreja

Assistant Editor: Jeremy Smith

Featuring an interview with Edward Said Professor, Columbia University and author of

Orientalism

Introduced by Sut Jhally University of Massachusetts-Amherst

Source: http://www.mediaed.org/

Video recording of the Interview of Edward Said on 'Orientalism'

Transcript of the interview of Edward Said on Orientalism (Click here to read transcript)

#What is Orientalism:

"Orientalism" is a way of seeing that imagines emphasizes, exaggerates and distorts differences of Arab peoples and cultures as compared to that of Europe and the U. S. It often involves seeing Arab culture as exotic, backward, uncivilized, and at times dangerous. Edward w. Said in his groundbreaking book, Orientalism, defined it as the acceptance in the West of " The basic distinction between East and West as the starting point for elaborate theories, epics, novels, Social descriptions, and political accounts concerning the Orient, its people, customers, 'mind's, destiny and so on.

#Orientalism

He said that, his interest in Orientalism began for two reasons, one it was an immediate thing, that is to say, the Arab Israeli war of 1973, and how the Arab are considered as cowardly and they don't know how to fight and they are always going to be beaten because they are not modern.

And the second, one, which has a much longer history in my own life was the constant sort of disparity. Novelists who wrote about the Orient like Disraeli Flaubert.

# THE REPERTORT OF ORIENTALISM

He said that, if anybody wished to talk about or read about India or Egypt or Syria, there would be very little chance for that person to simply address the subject, as we like to think in a kind of free and creative way. A great deal of writing had gone before and this writing was an organized form of writing, like an organized science. What l've called Orientalism.

He also take one reference of French poet, Gerard de Nerval who went on a voyage to the Orient, as he called it, and I was reading this book of his travels in Syria and to the Orient. On the theory that the Orientals are all the same no matter where you find them, whether it's in India, or Syria, or in Egypt, it's basically the same assets.

#ORIANTALISM & EMPIRE

There was a kind of break that occurred kind of after Napoleon came to Egypt in 1798. He said that I think it's the first really modern imperial expedition. So he invades the place but he doesn't invade it the way the Spaniards invaded the New World, looking for loot. And produce a kind of scientific survey of Egypt, which was designed, not for the Egyptian, but for the European.

#AMERICAN ORIENTALISM

The differences between different kinds of Orientalisms are in effect the differences between different experiences of what is called the Orient. That means the difference between Britain and France on the one hand and the United States on the other, is that Britain and France had colonies in the Orient.

He also said that, difference between British and French Orientalism on the one hand and the American experience of the Orient on the other is that the American one is much more indirect, much more based on abstractions.

#ORIENTALISM TODAY - The Demonization of Islam in the New and Popular Culture

He prefer his third book 'Covering Islam' a kind of triogy in his talk of interview. And Covering Islam was an account of the coverage of Islam in the popular media. Immediately occasioned by the Iranian Revolution, which described itself as you recall, as an Islamic revolution. He found to my horror and surprise, that during those sixteen or seventeen years with a large number of events in the Islamic world taking place.

he also prefer about the Oklahoma City bombing, that this was a Christian fundamentalist. But the Islamic Jihad come to America and you had these scenes of the most irresponsible journalism. growing up in the Middle East in Palestine,in Cairo used to delight in films on the Arabian Nights, you know done by Hollywood producers. It's the situation in the popular media is that basically Muslims are really two things, one, they are villains and fanatics.