Tottoli (ed.) Orientalists at work

Criticism to Edward W. Said's Orientalism, 2019

The publication of Edward W. Said’s Orientalism marked a momentous intervention in the historiography of Western imperialism and Western representations of the Middle East. Many regarded Orientalism as “one of the most influential scholarly books published in English in the humanities in the last quarter of the twentieth century”(Lockman, 2004: 190). The book stormed up a debate in the academic world by accusing the West of having a skewed and condescending view towards the East, particularly in the several ways in which Westerners portrayed and represented non-Western cultures. While Orientalism generated sympathy and agreement, it also raised complete rejection. Alexander Lyon Macfie points out this aspect in his book Orientalism (2002) as: “Opinion regarding the validity of Said’s Orientalism was then mixed. But a pattern of sorts can be detected, based not so much on the nationality and religion of the scholars and intellectuals concerned as on their attitude to history and the modern and post-modern philosophical ideas (deconstruction, truth as illusion, intellectual hegemony, and so on) which frequently influence it” (109). The present paper tries to bring an approach to criticism made towards Edward Said, his influential theory and Said’s partial response to those criticism.

Australian Religion Studies Review, 2005

Orientalism" has become a highly charged and contested term in several disciplinary fields, especially postcolonial studies. Since the appearance of Edward Said's landmark Orientalism (1978), many scholars have pursued lines of inquiry opened up by Said, arguing that Western modes of representation have created a fabric of ideological fictions about "the East". This article argues that the many insights of Said notwithstanding, his model of "orientalism" presents a distorted and misleading account of the actual historical realities, particularly with respect to the West's encounter with the religious traditions of Asia. It concludes with some reflections about alternative perspectives on orientalism, especially those offered by traditionalist writers such as René

Orientalism Revisited, 2012

In his cardinal work, Orientalism, the Western Conception of the Orient and other works, Edward Said reconfigures the historical construction of European and Euro-American discourses about Near-East civilizations, cultures and peoples. By defining the "Oriental" study as discourse, it can be examined within the power structure of hierarchies. Said's repeated utilization of Foucault's theory about the relationship between power and discourse led him to an examination of the cultural imperialism. With abundant references and illustrations, he has demonstrated how Orientalism was created alongside the European cultural penetration into the lands of the "Other" and how it was justified by various disciplines and practices. Scholars in China have now criticized the ideology of Orientalism and offered their unique reflections on the subject matter in the contemporary time.

2018

The first figure that pops up in my mind whenever I think about Orientalism is Pr. Edward Said and his ground-breaking book “Orientalism”, which was published in 1978. The point I want to make here by focusing on Said’s work is that one can read hundred of books; but if he did not select the right books to read, he won’t learn that much. “Orientalism” is hence the kind of books one cannot do without, along the process and the shaping of his intellectuality. To trace back Orientalism in history is a kind of tough task that this encompassing concept did exist practically in the other nations’ writings apart from UK and France. The purpose of this essay though is not to repeat what Said stipulated in his encircling intellectual and literary corpus. It intends rather, to point out a variety of ways in which Orientalism can be of great help to the study of historical, political and cultural concerns. Orientalism, so to speak, is a rich source, which can satisfy the scholars’ large array ...

Australian Humanities Review, 2013

WAEL B. HALLAQ: Restating Orientalism: A Critique of Modern Knowledge. vii-x, 384 pp. New York: Columbia University Press, 2018. £30 ISBN 978-0-231-18762-6 Fifteen years after Edward Said’s untimely passing biographies have been written, numerous scores settled, and homages paid. Wael Hallaq presents a new fundamental critique of Orientalism – of a book that launched the process of decolonizing the humanities beginning in the 1980s – on its own terms. Restating Orientalism accuses Said of both conceptual subjugation of the Orient and limiting his critique to Orientalists. Other disciplines in the humanities were just as, if not more, complicit in the production of knowledge that ultimately made conceivable European genocides. He contends that a reformed and ethical form of Orientalism may yet lead the way towards decolonial epistemologies. At a more abstract level, Hallaq claims that European thought, particularly rationalist philosophy and secularism, preceded the politics of colonialism and bears the responsibility for looming planetary disaster. During his lifetime, Said did not take lightly to criticism on methodological grounds, especially by those who were otherwise on the same side of the political barricade. The fallout with Sadek Jalal al-‘Azm (2016) destroyed their friendship after the former reviewed Orientalism and accused Said of peddling to cultural essentialism and alterity. Their acerbic correspondence signaled what Samer Frangie has called “the broken conversation” between academic radicalism and “theory as a weapon” (A. Cabral) on the anti-colonial front lines of the global cold war. Meanwhile, Islamists have tended to read Orientalism more favourably because – as al-‘Azm predicted – the book appeared to confirm not only Islam’s total and absolute difference but also the pernicious legacy of the enlightenment manifested in Western humanism, liberalism and secularism. Said spent much effort to dispel such receptions. He had joined the Palestinian revolution and stepped up his criticism of its leadership. He all but abandoned discourse analysis and whenever given a chance repeated the mantra he succinctly expressed in Tariq Ali’s documentary Black Athena, that: “The search for roots and origins is essentially an affirmation of identity, […] that is almost always a construction. There is no such thing as a pure Greek, or a pure Egyptian or pure anything. Everything is hopelessly mixed up together.” Such cultural mixity does not sit easily with the author of Restating Orientalism who presents a labyrinthine argument for an authentic and singular, premodern Islam that was destroyed by the rapacious liberal and secular forces of an autogenetic European modernity. Instead, the author maintains that so long as nefarious modern philosophical presuppositions are not exposed and rejected at their early modern genocidal roots, any political struggle, advocacy or revolution are futile and superficial attempts at human salvation.