Title: Orientalism
First published: 1978
Description: Orientalism is a 1978 book by Edward W. Said, in which the author discusses Orientalism, defined as the West's patronizing representations of "The East"—the societies and peoples who inhabit the places of Asia, North Africa, and the Middle East. According to Said, orientalism (the Western scholarship about the Eastern World) is inextricably tied to the imperialist societies who produced it, which makes much Orientalist work inherently political and servile to power.

According to Said, in the Middle East, the social, economic, and cultural practices of the ruling Arab elites indicate they are imperial satraps who have internalized the romanticized "Arab Culture" created by French, British and, later, American Orientalists; the examples include critical analyses of the colonial literature of Joseph Conrad, which conflates a people, a time, and a place into a narrative of incident and adventure in an exotic land.

The critical application of post-structuralism in the scholarship of Orientalism influenced the development of literary theory, cultural criticism, and the field of Middle Eastern studies, especially regarding how academics practice their intellectual inquiry when examining, describing, and explaining the Middle East. The scope of Said's scholarship established Orientalism as a foundation text in the field of post-colonial culture studies, which examines the denotations and connotations of Orientalism, and the history of a country's post-colonial period.

As a public intellectual, Edward Said debated Orientalism with historians and scholars of area studies, notably, the historian Bernard Lewis, who described the thesis of Orientalism as "anti-Western". For subsequent editions of Orientalism, Said wrote an "Afterword" (1995) and a "Preface" (2003)addressing criticisms of the content, substance, and style of the work as cultural criticism. (Wikipedia)
Subjects: Study and teaching, East and West, Foreign public opinion, Occidental, Imperialism, Foreign opinion, Occidental, Orientalism, History, Foreign public opinion, Civilization, Oriental, Occidental Foreign public opinion, Occidental Foreign opinion, Oriental Civilization, Western Foreign public opinion, Study skills, Orientalistik, Opinion publique étrangère, Impérialisme, Étude et enseignement, Oriëntalisme, Orientalisme, Kultur, Asia, study and teaching, Middle east, study and teaching, Opinion publique occidentale, Western Public opinion, open_syllabus_project, Orient et Occident, E tude et enseignement, Sociedade (estudo), Islamismo, Imperialismo, Orientalismo, Opinión pública extranjera, Oriente Medio, Enseñanza, Civilización oriental, Foreign public opinion, western, Ds12 .s24 1978, 950/.07/2, Ds12 .s24 1979, Public opinion, Oriëntalistiek
Places: Asia, Middle East, Orient, East, Moyen-Orient, Ocidente, Oriente médio;oriente próximo, Oriente, Asia (Estudo E Ensino), Oriente Medio
Time periods: Séculos 19 e 20