Orientalism (book)

The term Orientalism Edward Said referred to in his 1978 published work the Euro -centric, western views of the societies of the Middle East and the Arab world as a "style of rule, restructuring and ownership authority over the Orient ". This thinking pressures from a feeling of superiority over the Orient and be a part of the modern political and intellectual culture of our time. It put itself as a discourse in which the "enlightened West" the "mysterious Orient " negotiating equally as dominant and draw out due to the unbroken tradition of a deep-seated hostility towards Islam. In his study, Said limited his criticism of the " academic Orientalism ," that is, the academic compartment of Oriental and Islamic Studies, at the end of the 19th and early 20th century. His theses, where it is based on the concept of discourse of Michel Foucault have since taken care of much controversy.

Said's critique of Orientalism

Using the approaches of Michel Foucault Said analyzed works of British and French scientists and writers and cooperates out that it this is not going to provide an objective view of the situation. Rather pressures in the works from a colonial approach, which would correspond to the balance of power between colonizers and colonized.

Western thinking is characterized by the fact produce definitions of opposites. During the "West" as the civilization was considered to be the Orient appears mysterious and threatening. By rule knowledge to Western writers saw in the position to define the situation and the people of the Orient, thus depriving them of their right to self determination. From this definition of power resulted exoticist, culturalist and also overtly racist images, which served to legitimize the colonization of the East.

This work is an important basis for the post-colonial science that can be checked with Said's approach to date scientific findings and show various examples, how the relationship between Europe and other regions, such as the Balkans, India and China is dominated by colonialist assumptions. Reviews and extensions of Said'schen analyzes from a feminist perspective can be found in particular in Reina Lewis, Anne McClintock and Meyda Yegenoglu.

Critique of Orientalist positions it has long been publications before Said's. So Nâzım Hikmet 1925 sealed against the romanticized and exoticist positions of the French " Turkey lover " Pierre Loti:

"This is the Orient, saw him as the French poet! This is the Orient of the books are printed of which one million per minute! But there was neither yesterday, nor is there today as a Orient and it will give him no tomorrow! "

The analysis involves Saidsche despite their brilliance in both methodological as well as in terms of content, some weakness, such as with regard to the lack of geographical specification or on the lack of temporal limitation. In terms of content, inter alia, the homogeneous representation of the Orientalist discourse problematic, since thereby the distinction between Orient and Occident, which must pick it up, is cemented and resistant to a real Orient is implied.

Recent case studies such as those by Urs App that religious and philosophical ideologies of Orientalists often played a more important role as colonialism and imperialism and that the "Orient" must continue to be taken much more than this at Said and his epigones was the case. This is one reason why countries like Germany, which have been overlooked almost entirely by Said, could play an extremely important role in Orientalism.

Since then, the concept has been applied over the investigated by Said Middle East extended to other non-European cultures. So Donald Sewell Lopez, Jr., and Volker Zotz have studied the study of Buddhism in relation to Western projections.

Translations

Said's work has been translated into several languages, including in addition to numerous European languages ​​including Japanese, Korean and Hebrew. The Arabic translation is by Kamal Abu Deeb, a Syrian poet. The German version from 1979 is currently out of print. In 2009 they had an anxious by Hans Günter Holl new translation by S. Fischer.