Orientalism

Content Warning: The source text uses terms that are now considered outdated and offensive such as “the Orient,” “Orientalism,” and “oriental.” Said uses these terms to critique these concepts, and this study guide reproduces them in that critical context.

In Edward Said’s introduction to Orientalism, he begins by defining Orientalism as the intellectual and political dominance of Western countries (the Occident) over non-Western countries (the Orient). Throughout the book, he makes three crucial arguments about how this power differential emerged. Firstly, he argues that while Americans and Europeans have different notions of what constitutes the Orient, he is interested in the combined US and European intellectual and political investment in the Middle East and Asia. While US and European investments vary, Said proposes looking at Western patterns and attitudes toward the Middle East and Asia over time to better understand the impact of Orientalism. He argues that to gain a comprehensive history of Orientalist activity, one must view not only Western material interest in the Orient but also Western academic and literary imagination of the East.

Secondly, Said argues that the juxtaposition of the Occident against the Orient creates a “relationship of power […] of varying degrees of complex hegemony” (5).