Final Term (Assignment no.

2)

Research Method in Literature

Topic of Assignment: Writing a Research
Proposal on Orientation

Submitted by: Ayesha Sadiqa

Roll No: 450035
Semester: 1st
Submitted to : Sir Wajad Raiz

Department of English
University of Lahore, Sargodha Campus
 In art history, literature and cultural studies, Orientalism is the imitation or depiction of aspects in the
Eastern world. These depictions are usually done by writers, designers, and artists from the West. In
particular, Orientalist painting, depicting more specifically "the Middle East", was one of the many
specialisms of 19th-century academic art, and the literature of Western countries took a similar interest in
Oriental themes.
Since the publication of Edward Said's Orientalism in 1978, much academic discourse has begun to use the
term "Orientalism" to refer to a general patronizing Western attitude towards Middle Eastern, Asian, and
North African societies. In Said's analysis, the West essentializes these societies as static and
undeveloped—thereby fabricating a view of Oriental culture that can be studied, depicted, and reproduced
in the service of imperial power. Implicit in this fabrication, writes Said, is the idea that Western society is
developed, rational, flexible, and superior.
"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, customs, ‘mind,’ destiny and so on.”
According to Said, Orientalism dates from the period of European Enlightenment and colonization of the
Arab World. Orientalism provided a rationalization for European colonialism based on a self-serving
history in which “the West” constructed “the East” as extremely different and inferior, and therefore in need
of Western intervention or “rescue”.

Background
Orientalism refers to the Orient, in reference and opposition to the Occident; the East and the West,
respectively. The word Orient entered the English language as the Middle French orient. The root word
oriēns, from the Latin Oriēns, has synonymous denotations: The eastern part of the world; the sky whence
comes the sun; the east; the rising sun, etc.; yet the denotation changed as a term of geography.
In the "Monk's Tale" (1375), Geoffrey Chaucer wrote: "That they conquered many regnes grete / In the
orient, with many a fair citee." The term orient refers to countries east of the Mediterranean Sea and
Southern Europe. In In Place of Fear (1952), Aneurin Bevan used an expanded denotation of the Orient that
comprehended East Asia: "the awakening of the Orient under the impact of Western ideas." Edward Said
said that Orientalism "enables the political, economic, cultural and social domination of the West, not just
during colonial times, but also in the present."
Examples of early Orientalism can be seen in European paintings and photographs and also in images from
the World’s Fair in the U.S. in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
The paintings, created by European artists of the 19th and early 20th centuries, depict the Arab World as
an exotic and mysterious place of sand, harems and belly dancers, reflecting a long history of Orientalist
fantasies which have continued to permeate our contemporary popular culture.
France colonized Algeria from 1830 to 1962. From roughly 1900 to 1930, French entrepreneurs produced
postcards of Algerian women that were circulated in France. While Algerian women are portrayed in these
photographs as if the camera is capturing a real moment in their everyday lives, the women are actually set
up in the photographer’s studio. As demonstrated in Malek Alloula’s book, The Colonial Harem, these
photographs were circulated as evidence of the exotic, backwards and strange customs of Algerians, when,
in fact, they reveal more about the French colonial perspective than about Algerian life in the early 1900s.
This is an example of how Arab women have been exoticized and eroticized for the pleasure of the European
male voyeur, as these photographs make visible French colonial fantasies of penetrating the harem and
gaining access to Arab women’s private spaces.
The World’s Fairs in Chicago (1893) and St. Louis (1904) helped to reinforce Orientalist imagery in the
United States. The crossover from European to U.S. Orientalism can be seen in the images from James
Buel’s photographic book that catalogued the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago. This publication includes
photographs of recreated Arab streets, accompanied by captions that capture the Orientalist thinking of the
time. For example, the caption that accompanies the image “Egyptian Girl in Street of Cairo” refers to the
“peculiar manners of the Egyptians,” and her “unsightly disguise.” In addition to being written about as an
object on display, her characteristics are described as belonging to a backwards culture.

Kinds of Orientalism
There are 3 different kinds of Orientalism. These are Academic, Imaginative and Orientalism as a discourse.
They tie into one another, of course, they are all used depending on what a person believes about the concept
of Orientalism and how important that concept is to the individual.
Academic Orientalism is so valid in that it more clinical and relies on the facts that are offered.
Imaginative Orientalism is more stereotypical and talks more about things and are generally resent to be
racist orethnocentric instead of things that are actually completed factual.
Using Orientalism as a discourse means that people are willing to talk about it and that is very significant
because people who do not talk about the differences that they have and the way that they feel about those
differences not only do not learn of their similarities but also do not learn of the stereotypes that are
incorrect.

Challenge of Orientalism
Several reviewers take Orientalism as a starting point to raise issues about representation in general. For
example, Clifford (1980) considers such issues critical for the production of all representational discourses,
whether anthropology, travel writing or history.

Is Orientalism political?
This form of Orientalism is distinctly political because it allows the targeting, antagonising, and alienating
of the Orient based on its distorted rhetoric representations, or rather misrepresentations.

Is Orientalism an ideology?
Orientalism. Orientalism has probably never been seen as an ideology by most scholars. But since E. Said
(Orientalism, 1979) defined it as a system of thought dominating the Western perception of the East, the
ideological character of Orientalism is becoming increasingly clear.
Is Orientalism a theory?
Furthermore, Said said that Orientalism, as an "idea of representation is a theoretical one: The Orient is a
stage on which the whole East is confined" to make the Eastern world "less fearsome to the West"; and that
the developing world, primarily the West, is the cause of colonialism.

Orientalism vs Religion
An exchange of Western and Eastern ideas about spirituality developed as the West traded with and
established colonies in Asia. The first Western translation of a Sanskrit text appeared in 1785, marking the
growing interest in Indian culture and languages. Translations of the Upanishads, which Arthur
Schopenhauer called "the consolation of my life", first appeared in 1801 and 1802. Early translations also
appeared in other European languages. 19th-century transcendentalism was influenced by Asian
spirituality, prompting Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) to pioneer the idea of spirituality as a distinct
field.
A major force in the mutual influence of Eastern and Western spirituality and religiosity was the
Theosophical Society, a group searching for ancient wisdom from the East and spreading Eastern religious
ideas in the West. One of its salient features was the belief in "Masters of Wisdom", "beings, human or
once human, who have transcended the normal frontiers of knowledge, and who make their wisdom
available to others". The Theosophical Society also spread Western ideas in the East, contributing to its
modernisation and a growing nationalism in the Asian colonies.
The Theosophical Society had a major influence on Buddhist modernism and Hindu reform movements.
Between 1878 and 1882, the Society and the Arya Samaj were united as the Theosophical Society of the
Arya Samaj. Helena Blavatsky, along with H. S. Olcott and Anagarika Dharmapala, was instrumental in
the Western transmission and revival of Theravada Buddhism.
Another major influence was Vivekananda, who popularised his modernised interpretation of Advaita
Vedanta during the later 19th and early 20th century in both India and the West, emphasising anubhava
("personal experience") over scriptural authority.

Eastern views of the West and Western views of the East

The concept of Orientalism has been adopted by scholars in East-Central and Eastern Europe, among them
Maria Todorova, Attila Melegh, Tomasz Zarycki, and Dariusz Skórczewski as an analytical tool for
exploring the images of East-Central and Eastern European societies in cultural discourses of the West in
the 19th century and during the Soviet domination.
The term "re-orientalism" was used by Lisa Lau and Ana Cristina Mendes to refer to how Eastern self-
representation is based on western referential points:
Re-Orientalism differs from Orientalism in its manner of and reasons for referencing the West: while
challenging the metanarratives of Orientalism, re-Orientalism sets up alternative metanarratives of its own
in order to articulate eastern identities, simultaneously deconstructing and reinforcing Orientalism.
Occidentalism
The term occidentalism is often used to refer to negative views of the Western world found in Eastern
societies and is founded on the sense of nationalism that spread in reaction to colonialism. Edward Said has
been accused of Occidentalizing the west in his critique of Orientalism; of being guilty of falsely
characterizing the West in the same way that he accuses Western scholars of falsely characterizing the East.
Said essentialized the West by creating a homogenous image of the area. Currently, the West consists not
only of Europe, but also the United States, which has become more influential and dominant over the years.
Othering
The action of othering cultures occurs when groups are labeled as different due to characteristics that
distinguish them from the perceived norm. Edward Said, author of the book Orientalism, argued that
western powers and influential individuals such as social scientists and artists othered "the Orient." The
evolution of ideologies is often initially embedded in the language, and continues to ripple through the
fabric of society by taking over the culture, economy and political sphere. Much of Said's criticism of
Western Orientalism is based on what he describes as articularizing trends. These ideologies are present in
Asian works by Indian, Chinese, and Japanese writers and artists, in their views of Western culture and
tradition. A particularly significant development is the manner in which Orientalism has taken shape in
non-Western cinema, as for instance in Hindi-language cinema.