Presentation Notes

Slide 1:

Hello, my name is Amir and I will be talking to you about Eurocentrism,

Discourse and Power from the reading Formations of Modernity

Slide 2:

Eurocentrism is an idea that Europe is at the center of the universe

Everyone has to follow their beliefs and values and even though this was
dated back since the late 1700’s, people still abide by this ideology today
Example of eurocentrism is someone saying that the Europe way is better

Slide 3:

One interesting point that I would like to include in this presentation is how
eurocentrism is in maps. This is from the lecture on Monday if you were
there. Maps have been created to show interpretations of reality and in this
case, it shows the Europeans having more power

Slide 4:

On this Mercator map, you can see that Greenland is indeed bigger than
China. This shows that maps do indeed have this Eurocentric ideal. This way
of communication is called Eurocentric discourse
Slide 5:

Now we move on to the next big topic which is discourse. For this reading, it
is used as way of representing the “West” which I will explain later on in the
presentation. Discourse will directly be referred to the West.

Slide 6:

What this means is that discourse is the communication which in this case
language. It can also be seen through action as well

Slide 7:

I would like to draw a relation between discourse and the west. How are
they related? Well for starters discourse could be implicated as a way of
communicating with bias. How the Europeans treated the rest now that this
has been engraved into society. Now the rest is known to be the other
which are the working-class people

Slide 8:

Power is seen throughout history as being something very relevant in our

society as well. In the reading, it shows the white males having the most
wealth and power while the other has less “superiority”. A connection to
how power was created is from a hierarchy. The Great Chain of Being (1579)
is the hierarchy ranked between heaven and hell. This is related to this
reading because we humans have made our own hierarchy where the

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wealthy are at the top and the poor below. The Europeans have made it to
the top which is shown in society

Slide 9:

My final topic that I will be talking about is orientalism. A word that was
created by Edward Said. It is a way of seeing that depicts the other as said in
the title of the book. This is directly related to the people in the middle
eastern, it is meant to show how the Europeans gained strength.