Worksheet:



Edward Said, Introduction to Orientalism I, questions for discussion:

1. Where is Beirut?

2. Who were Chateaubriand and Nerval? When did they live? What do they have to do with Beirut?

3. What could Said mean when he says (p. 1) that the Orient “was almost a European invention”?

4. Why would a “representation” of the Orient have a “privileged communal significance for the [French] journalist and his French readers” (p. 1)? What does “representation” mean in this sentence? What does “privileged” mean when used in this way?

5. What does Said mean when he says (p. 1) that for Europe the Orient has been among the “deepest and most recurring images of the Other”? What does “Other” mean when used in this way?

6. On page 2 Said begins an extended definition of “Orientalism” that runs through the middle of page 3. What are his three main “meanings” of the term?

7. Regarding Said’s second “meaning” of Orientalism he says that it is a “style of thought based upon an ontological and epistemological distinction between ‘the Orient’ and . . . ‘the Occident’” (p. 2). What could that mean? What is the meaning of “ontological”? What is the meaning of “epistemological”? How could a “style of thought” be based upon an ontological and epistemological distinction?

8. Who were Aeschylus, Victor Hugo, Dante, and Karl Marx? When and where did they live? Why are they remembered?

9. Who was Michel Foucault? When and where did he live? Why is he remembered?

10. Said mentions the “post-Enlightenment period” (p. 3). What was the Enlightenment?

Note on ‘discourse’

A central concept in Said’s work and thought is what Foucault and others have called a “discourse.” If we look in a dictionary we’ll find several definitions for “discourse,” but none of these come very close to what Foucault and Said have in mind, and so we have a difficulty. Yet Said says on page 3 that “without examining Orientalism as a discourse” we “cannot possibly understand” what he is talking about. We’ll have to get clear about the concept of a discourse, then, or risk badly misunderstanding what Said says. Foucault’s own writing on the subject in the books Said mentions, The Archaeology of Knowledge and Discipline and Punish, is difficult, but fortunately Said himself, particularly in this introduction to Orientalism and beginning in this first section, is fairly clear about what he means by the term.

a. The discourse of Orientalism is related in some way to an “enormously systematic discipline by which European culture was able to manage—and even produce—the Orient politically, sociologically, militarily, ideologically, scientifically, and imaginatively” (p. 3).This “discourse” is a powerful thing. Said says that this discourse, this “enormously systematic discipline,” produced the Orient. What could this possibly mean?

b. The discourse of Orientalism was so “authoritative,” Said says further (p. 3), that “no one writing, thinking, or acting on the Orient could do so without taking account of the limitations on thought and action imposed by Orientalism”.

What could this mean? A discourse, or at least this discourse, limits both thought and action. What do you suppose Said means when he says that a discourse can limit thought and action?

c. “In brief, because of [the discourse of] Orientalism the Orient was not (and is not) a free subject of thought or action” (p. 3). A discourse, Said says, makes some subjects, the Orient in this case, impossible to think about or to act about freely. Discourse, in other words, stops free thought and free action. The thoughts and actions of all people connected with the discourse are not free, are determined by the discourse. What can this mean? How can a discourse limit the ways we think and act, or even make it completely impossible for us to think and act in certain ways?

d. This discourse is a “whole network of interests” that are “inevitably brought to bear on (and . . . always involved in) any occasion” in which the subject of the discourse, in this case the Orient, is in question (p. 3). The discourse is a network of thoughts, texts, ideas, concepts, representations, imaginings and institutions (notice the similarity of “network” to the “enormously systematic discipline” of the quote above) that always, in all cases, for every person in every situation, makes it impossible to think or act in certain ways. How can this be?

11. Said writes on page 4 of a “complex array of ‘Oriental’ ideas,” and mentions specifically “Oriental despotism,” “Oriental splendor,” Oriental “cruelty,” and Oriental “sensuality.” What is he talking about? Of what are these examples? How are they related to the discourse of Orientalism?

12. What does Said mean when he writes that “Eastern sects, philosophies, and wisdoms” have been “domesticated for local European use” (p. 4)? How can the religions, philosophies, and wisdoms of one group of people be “domesticated” for another group of people? What does “domesticated” mean in such a sentence? What do you suppose this has to do with the concept of a discourse?

Notes on:

Michel Foucault (pronounced [miʃɛl fuko]) (October 15, 1926 – June 25, 1984) was a French philosopher, historian, critic and sociologist. He held a chair at the Collège de France, giving it the title "History of Systems of Thought," and taught at the University of California, Berkeley.

Michel Foucault is best known for his critical studies of various social institutions, most notably psychiatry, medicine, the human sciences, and the prison system, as well as for his work on the history of human sexuality. Foucault's work on power, and the relationships among power, knowledge, and discourse, has been widely discussed and applied. Sometimes described as postmodernist or post-structuralist, in the 1960s he was more often associated with the structuralist movement. Foucault later distanced himself from structuralism and always rejected the post-structuralist and postmodernist labels.

The Age of Enlightenment (French: Siècle des Lumières; Italian: Sècolo dei Lumi; German: Aufklärung) was an eighteenth century movement in European and American philosophy. An age of optimism, tempered by realistic recognition of the sad state of the human condition and need for major reforms. Some classifications of this period also include 17th century philosophy, which is typically known as the Age of Reason.

The term can more narrowly refer to the intellectual movement of The Enlightenment, which advocated reason as the primary basis of authority. Developing in France, Britain and Germany, the Enlightenment influenced most of Europe, including Russia and Scandinavia. The era is marked by such political changes as governmental consolidation, nation creation, greater rights for common people, and a decline in the influence of authoritarian institutions such as the nobility and Church.

There is no consensus on when to date the start of the Age of Enlightenment, and a number of scholars simply use the beginning of the eighteenth century as a default date. Many scholars use the beginning of the Napoleonic Wars (1804–15) as a convenient point in time with which to date the end of the Enlightenment.

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