Encyclopedia
Orientalism is the study of Near and
Far Eastern societies and cultures, languages and peoples by
Western scholars. It can also refer to the imitation or depiction of aspects of
Eastern cultures in the West by writers, designers and artists.
In the former meaning the term
Orientalism has come to acquire negative connotations in some quarters and is interpreted to refer to the study of the East by Americans and Europeans shaped by the attitudes of the era of European
imperialism in the
18th and
19th centuries. When used in this sense, it implies old-fashioned and prejudiced outsider interpretations of Eastern cultures and peoples. This viewpoint was most famously articulated and propagated by
Edward Said in his controversial book
Orientalism , which was critical of this scholarly tradition and of modern scholars including
Princeton University professor
Bernard Lewis.
Meaning of the term
Like the term
Orient itself
Orientalism derives from a
Latin word
Oriens referring simply to the rising of the sun, to imply "the East" in a relative sense. This is the opposite of the term
Occident, which has largely dropped from common usage. Similar terms are the French-derived
Levant and
Anatolia, from the Greek
anatole, two further
for the direction in which the sun rises.
In terms of The Old World,
Europe was considered to be 'The West' or Occidental, and the furthest known Eastern extremity 'The East' or 'The Orient'.
From at least the time of the Roman Empire until at least the Middle Ages, what is now considered 'the
Middle East' was then considered 'the Orient'. During that period, the flourishing cultures of the Far East were little known, just as Europe was essentially unknown in 'the
Far East.
Over time, the common understanding of 'the Orient' has continually shifted East as Western explorers traveled deeper into Asia. In Biblical times, the
Three Wise Men 'from the Orient' were actually
Magi from "The East" meaning 'the
Persian Empire'. After all period, as Europe gained knowledge of countries further to the East, the definition of the limit of 'the Orient' progressively shifted eastwards, until the Pacific Ocean was reached, in what is also known as 'the
Far East'. This can cause some confusion about the historical and geographic scope of
Oriental Studies.
However, there still remain some contexts where 'the Orient' or 'Oriental' refer to older definitions. For example, 'Oriental Spices' typically come from regions extending from the Middle East through the Indian sub-continent to Indo-China. Also, travel on the
Orient Express , is eastward bound , but does not reach what is currently understood to be
the Orient.In contemporary English,
Oriental is usually a synonym for the peoples, cultures and goods from the parts of
East Asia traditionally occupied by
East Asians and
Southeast Asians, excluding
Indians, Arabs and other more westerly peoples. In some parts of America it is considered derogatory to use this term to refer to Asians . For example, in Washington state it is illegal to use the word 'oriental' in legislation and government documents .
History of Orientalism
It is difficult to be precise about the origin of the distinction between the "West" and the "East". However the rise of both
Christianity and
Islam produced a sharp opposition between European
Christendom and the Muslim cultures to the East and in
North Africa. During the
Middle Ages Islamic peoples were the "alien" enemies of the Christian world. European knowledge of cultures further to the East was very sketchy. Nevertheless, there was a vague awareness that complex civilizations existed in
India and
China, from which luxury goods such as woven textiles and ceramics were imported. As European explorations and colonisations expanded a distinction emerged between non-literate peoples, for example in
Africa and the
Americas, and the literate cultures of the East.
In the 18th century
Enlightenment thinkers sometimes characterized aspects of Eastern cultures as superior to the Christian West. For example
Voltaire promoted research into
Zoroastrianism in the belief that it would support a rational
Deism superior to Christianity. Others praised the relative religious tolerance of Islamic countries in contrast with the Christian West, or the status of scholarship in Mandarin China. With the translation of the
Avesta by Abraham Anquetil-Duperron and the discovery of the
Indo-European languages by William Jones complex connections between the early history of Eastern and Western cultures emerged. However, these developments occurred in the context of rivalry between
France and
Britain for control of India, and it is sometimes claimed were associated with attempts to understand colonised cultures in order more effectively to control them. Liberal economists such as
James Mill denigrated Eastern countries on the grounds that their civilizations were static and corrupt.
Karl Marx characterised the "Asiatic mode of production" as unchanging and praised British colonialism in India. Christian
evangelists sought to denigrate Eastern religious traditions as
superstitions .
Despite this, the first serious European studies of
Buddhism and
Hinduism were undertaken by scholars such as Eugene Burnouf and
Max Müller. In this period serious study of Islam also emerged. By the mid-19th century Oriental Studies was an established academic discipline. However, while scholarly study expanded, so did
racist attitudes and popular stereotypes of "inscrutable" and "wily" orientals. Often scholarly ideas were intertwined with such prejudicial racial or religious assumptions. Eastern art and literature were still seen as "exotic" and as inferior to Classical Graeco-Roman ideals. Their political and economic systems were generally thought to be
feudal "oriental despotisms" and their alleged cultural inertia was considered to be resistant to progress. Many critical theorists regard this form of Orientalism as part of a larger, ideological
colonialism justified by the concept of the "
white man's burden".
Orientalism in the arts
Imitations of Oriental styles
Similar ambivalence is evident in art and literature. From the
Renaissance to the 18th century Western designers attempted to imitate the technical sophistication of Chinese ceramics with only partial success.
Chinoiserie is the catch-all term for the fashion for Chinese themes in decoration in Western Europe, beginning in the late 17th century and peaking in waves, especially
Rococo Chinoiserie,
ca 1740-1770. Early hints of Chinoiserie appear, in the 17th century, in the nations with active East India companies: England , Denmark , Holland and France . Tin-glazed pottery made at
Delft and other Dutch towns adopted genuine
blue-and-white Ming decoration from the early 17th century, and early ceramic wares at Meißen and other centers of true
porcelain imitated Chinese shapes for dishes, vases and teawares . But in the true Chinoiserie décor fairyland, mandarins lived in fanciful mountainous landscapes with cobweb bridges, carried flower parasols, lolled in flimsy bamboo pavilions haunted by
dragons and
phoenixes, while monkeys swung from scrolling borders.
Pleasure pavilions in "Chinese taste" appeared in the formal parterres of late Baroque and Rococo German palaces, and in tile panels at
Aranjuez near
Madrid.
Thomas Chippendale's mahogany tea tables and china cabinets, especially, were embellished with fretwork glazing and railings,
ca 1753 - 70, but sober
homages to early Xing scholars' furnishings were also naturalized, as the
tang evolved into a mid- Georgian side table and squared slat-back armchairs suited English gentlemen as well as Chinese scholars. Not every adaptation of Chinese design principles falls within mainstream "chinoiserie." Chinoiserie media included imitations of lacquer and painted tin ware that imitated japanning, early painted wallpapers in sheets, and ceramic figurines and table ornaments. Small
pagodas appeared on chimneypieces and full-sized ones in gardens. Kew has a magnificent garden pagoda designed by Sir William Chambers.
After 1860,
Japonaiserie, sparked by the arrival of Japanese woodblock prints, became an important influence in the western arts in particular on many modern French artists such as Monet. The paintings of
James McNeill Whistler and his "Peacock Room" are some of the finest works of the genre; other examples include the
Gamble House and other buildings by California architects Greene and Greene.
Depictions of the Orient in art and literature
Depictions of Islamic "
Moors" and "Turks" can be found in Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque art. But it was not until the 19th century that "Orientalism" in the arts became an established theme. In these works the myth of the Orient as exotic and corrupt is most fully articulated. Such works typically concentrated on Near-Eastern Islamic cultures. Artists such as
Eugène Delacroix and
Jean-Léon Gérôme painted many depictions of Islamic culture, often including lounging
odalisques, and stressing lassitude and visual spectacle. When Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, director of the French
Académie de peinture painted a highly-colored vision of a
turkish bath , he made his eroticized Orient publicly acceptable by his diffuse generalizing of the female forms, who might all have been of the same model. If his painting had simply been retitled "In a Paris Brothel," it would have been far less acceptable. Sensuality was seen as acceptable in the exotic Orient. This orientalizing imagery persisted in art into the early 20th century, as evidenced in
Matisse's orientalist nudes. In these works the "Orient" often functions as a mirror to Western culture itself, or as a way of expressing its hidden or illicit aspects. In
Gustave Flaubert's novel
Salammbô ancient
Carthage in North Africa is used as a foil to ancient
Rome. Its culture is portrayed as morally corrupting and suffused with dangerously alluring eroticism. This novel proved hugely influential on later portrayals of ancient
Semitic cultures.
Examples of Orientalism in the arts
Literature
Opera, ballets, musicals
...
-
the Mighty Handful aka "the Five" Russian composers
...
-
The King And IShorter musical pieces
- Albert Ketèlbey -- In a Persian Market , In a Chinese Temple Garden , and In the Mystic Land of Egypt
Theater
Painting
Movies
- Lives of a Bengal Lancer
- Exodus
- Iron Eagle
- True Lies
Edward Said and "Orientalism"
Despite this often mixed tradition, the word "Orientalism" carried no overt negative freight. Respected institutions like the Oriental Institute of Chicago or the London
School of Oriental and African Studies carried the term without reproach. "Oriental" was simply understood as the opposite of "
occidental" .
The word was used to develop negative connotations following the publication of the groundbreaking work
Orientalism by the American-Palestinian scholar
Edward Said. Following the ideas of
Michel Foucault, Said emphasized the relationship between power and knowledge in scholarly and popular thinking, in particular regarding European views of the
Islamic Arab world. Said argued that Orient and Occident worked as oppositional terms, so that the "Orient" was constructed as a negative inversion of Western culture.
Taking a comparative and historical literary review of European, mainly British and French, scholars and writers looking at, thinking about, talking about, and writing about the peoples of the Middle East, Said sought to lay bare the relations of power between the colonizer and the colonized in those texts. Said's writings have had far-reaching implications beyond area studies in
Middle East, to studies of imperialist Western attitudes to
India,
China and elsewhere. It was one of the foundational texts of postcolonial studies. Said later developed and modified his ideas in his book
Culture and Imperialism .
Many scholars now use Said's work to attempt to overturn long-held, often taken-for-granted Western ideological biases regarding non-Westerners in scholarly thought. Some post-colonial scholars would even say that the West's idea of itself was constructed largely by saying what others were not. If "Europe" evolved out of "
Christendom" as the "not-Byzantium," early modern Europe in the late 16th century certainly defined itself as the "not-Turkey."
Said puts forward several definitions of 'Orientalism' in the introduction to
Orientalism. Some of these have been more widely quoted and influential than others:
- "A way of coming to terms with the Orient that is based on the Orient's special place in European Western experience."
- "a style of thought based upon an ontological and epistemological distinction made between 'the Orient' and 'the Occident'."
- "A Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient."
- "...particularly valuable as a sign of European-Atlantic power over the Orient than it is as a veridic discourse about the Orient."
- "A distribution of geopolitical awareness into aesthetic, scholarly, economic, sociological, historical, and philological texts."
Criticisms of Said
Critics of Said's theory, such as the historian
Bernard Lewis, argue that Said's account ignores the many genuine contributions to the study of Eastern cultures made by Westerners during the Enlightenment and
Victorian eras. Said has been criticised for ignoring the massive contribution of German scholars, such as Max Müller, who were in no way involved in any colonial project. Lewis argued that Orientalism arose from
humanism, which was distinct from Imperialist ideology, and sometimes in opposition to it. Orientalist study of Islam arose from the
rejection of religious dogma, and was an important spur to discovery of alternative cultures. Lewis criticised as "intellectual protectionism" the argument that only those within a culture could usefully discuss it. . In his ascerbic rebuttal of Lewis' critique, Said demonstrated how hard it was to debate with a scholar who rejected his opponents' intellectual credibility but stating that the former's negative rejoinder must be placed into its proper context. Since one of Said's principal arguments is that Orientalism was used as an instrument of empire, he contended that Lewis' critique of this thesis could hardly be judged in the disinterested, scholarly light that Lewis would like to present himself, but must be understood in the proper knowledge of what Said claimed was Lewis' own neo-imperialist proclivities and thus nothing Lewis said is genuine objective scholarship.
Critics of Said have also argued that while many distortions and fantasies certainly existed, the notion of "the Orient" as a negative mirror image of the West cannot be wholly true because attitudes to distinct cultures diverged significantly. In any case it is a logical necessity that other cultures will be identified as "different", since otherwise their
distinctive characteristics would be invisible, and that the most striking differences will hold up the mirror to the observing culture.
From "Oriental Studies" to "Asian Studies"
In most
North American universities, Oriental Studies has now been replaced by Asian Studies localized to specific regions, such as,
Middle Eastern or Near Eastern Studies,
South Asian studies, and Far East or
East Asian Studies. This reflects the fact that the Orient is not a single, monolithic region but rather a broad area encompassing multiple
civilizations. The generic concept of Oriental Studies, to its opponents, has lost any use it may have once had and is perceived as obstructing changes in departmental structures to reflect actual patterns of modern scholarship.
Opponents offer various political explantions for the change. They point to a growing number of professional scholars and students of East Asian Studies are
Asian Americans, especially
Chinese Americans,
Japanese Americans, and Korean Americans. This change of labelling may be correlated in some cases to the fact that sensitivity to the term "Oriental" has been heightened in a more politically correct atmosphere, although it began earlier: Sir Bernard Lewis' own department at
Princeton University was renamed a decade
before Said wrote his book, a detail which Said gets wrong. By some, the term "Oriental" has come to be thought offensive to non-Westerners. Area studies that incorporate not only philological pursuits but
identity politics may also account for the hestitation to use the term "Oriental".
Supporters of "Oriental Studies" counter that the term "
Asian" is just as encompassing as "Oriental" and may well have originally had the same meaning, if it were derived from an
Akkadian word for "East" . Replacing one word with another is to confuse historically objectional
opinions about the East with the concept of "the East" itself. The terms Oriental/Eastern and Occidental/Western are both inclusive concepts that usefully identify large-scale cultural differences. Such general concepts do not preclude or deny more specific ones.
A mirror image: Eastern views of the West
In an enlightening contrast, many of the essentially dismissive and patronizing concepts associated with Western "Orientalism" as expressed above are summed up— but in reverse orientation— in the epilogue to the "Chapter on the Western Regions" according to the
Hou Hanshu. This is the official history of the Later
Han Dynasty . The book was compiled by
Fan Ye, , and it succinctly expresses the Han opinion of the
Western Hu culture :
- The Western Hu are far away.
- They live in an outer zone.
- Their countries' products are beautiful and precious,
- But their character is debauched and frivolous.
- They do not follow the rites of China.
- Han has the canonical books.
- They do not obey the Way of the Gods.
- How pitiful!
- How obstinate!
Likewise, derogatory or stereotyped portrayals of Westerners appear in many works of Indian, Chinese and Japanese artists.
In contrast, some Eastern artists adopted and adapted Western styles. The Indian painter
Ravi Varma painted several works that are virtually indistinguishable from some Western orientalist images. In the late
20th century many Western cultural themes and images began appearing in Asian art and culture, especially in
Japan.
English words and phrases are prominent in Japanese advertising and popular culture, and many Japanese
animes are written around characters, settings, themes, and mythological figures derived from various Western cultural traditions.
Recently, the term
Occidentalism has been coined to refer to negative views of the Western world sometimes found in Eastern societies today. In a similar ideological vein to Occidentalism,
Eurocentrism can refer to both negative views and excessively positive views of the Western World found in discussions about 'Eastern culture'.
See also
...
- Karl A. Wittfogel
- Sir John Woodroffe
- Sufism
...
Notes
External links
|type = Public [i]
...
- at the University of Oxford
- at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark
- Leiden, the Netherlands
- at the University of Oslo
- at Stockholm University
- at the Universite de Lausanne
- at Universite Paris 7-Denis Diderot
- at the University of Warsaw
- of the University of Chicago
- Milano, Italy
- , resource site.
- China in Western Thought and Culture
- by Adel Iskandar
- The impact of Edward Said's book on Middle Eastern studies, by Martin Kramer.
- - an article by Austrian anthropologist Andre Gingrich
Suggested reading
- Wardi, Anissa. "Terrorists, Madmen and Religious Fanatics?: Revisiting Orientalism and Racist Rhetoric."
- Nguyen, Bich Minh. "The Good Immigrant Student."
- King, Robert D. "Should English be the Law?"
References
- Davies, Kristian. The Orientalists: Western artists in Arabia, the Sahara, Persia & India. New York: Laynfaroh, 2005 .
- Irwin, Robert. For lust of knowing: The Orientalists and their enemies. London: Penguin/Allen Lane, 2006 .
- by Philip Hensher in , January 28, 2006.
- by Allan Massie in the , February 4, 2006.
- by Terry Eagleton in the , February 13, 2006.
- by Bill Saunders in , February 26, 2006.
