Edward Said - Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro

Edward Said

The
 Pales)nian-­‐American
 scholar
 Edward
 Said
 (1935-­‐2003)
 is
 the
 inaugurator
 
of
 postcolonial
 thought.
 His
 book
 Orientalism
 (1978)
 is
 the
 key
 text.
 Spivak
 
calls
 it
 a
 "source
 book"
 and
 Bhabha
 refers
 to
 it
 as
 "inaugura)ng
 the
 
postcolonial
 field”.
 
He
 basically
 argues
 that
 "Orientalism
 is
 a
 style
 of
 thought
 based
 upon
 an
 
ontological
 and
 epistemological
 dis)nc)on
 between
 'the
 Orient'
 and
 'the
 
Occident’.
 Orientalism
 as
 a
 Western
 style
 of
 thought
 for
 having
 authority
 
over
 the
 Orient”.
 

Western
 colonisers
 of
 the
 Orient
 were
 liTle
 real
 interested
 in
 exploring
 or
 
understanding
 the
 cultures
 they
 encountered.
 Instead,
 they
 were
 more
 
interested
 in
 reinforcing
 a
 set
 of
 distorted
 assump)ons
 -­‐
 an
 imaginary
 moral
 
 
geography
 -­‐
 that
 said
 more
 about
 the
 West
 than
 the
 East
 (othering).
 

Edward Said

Said
 argues
 that
 knowledge
 about
 the
 Orient
 was
 not
 
disinterested:
 it
 preceded
 actual
 colonial
 prac)ces.
 In
 fact,
 
colonial
 prac)ces
 necessitated
 the
 produc)on
 of
 such
 
knowledge.
 Thus
 knowledge
 is
 bound
 up
 with
 power
 
(Foucault’s
 no)on
 of
 discourse).
 
 
The
 colonial
 power
 based
 on
 Orientalist
 knowledge
 does
 
not
 rely
 on
 physical
 force
 as
 much
 as
 the
 consent
 of
 the
 
na)ve.
 The
 na)ve
 agrees
 to
 be
 colonised
 when
 he
 accepts
 
the
 colonial
 stereotypes
 of
 himself.
 (Gramsci's
 no)on
 of
 
hegemony).
 
 

https://

Video questions:www.youtube.co

m/watch?

v=BjlRR-qRkcc Said on Orientalism

•  Which new field of studies did Orientalism give birth?
•  Which disciplines did it influence?
•  What question does it try to answer?
•  In which way do we acquire knowledge about the Orient?
•  In short, what is Orientalism?
•  The two reasons why Said began to study Orientalism.
•  What is the repertory of orientalist images?
•  What is Orientalism as far as Imperialism is concerned?
•  Does Orientalism present itself as objective knowledge?
•  Why was Napoleon’s invasion of the Egypt in 1798 a new

kind of imperial and colonial conquest?
•  What does this massive orientalist production of

knowledge show to the Europeans?

Video answers:
Said on Orientalism

•  Which new field of studies did Orientalism give birth?
•  Postcolonialism

•  Which disciplines did it influence?
•  English, History, Anthropology, Culture Studies…

•  What question does it try to answer?
•  “Why, when we think of the East, do we have a preconceived

notion of the people who live there?”

Video answers:
Said on Orientalism

•  In which way do we acquire knowledge about the Orient?
•  The way we acquire this knowledge is not innocent or objective,

it may distort the “actual reality” of those places and people

•  In short, what it Orientalism?
•  Orientalism is a distorting lens

•  The two reasons why Said began to study Orientalism:
•  1. the Arab-Israeli war in 1973 when the Egyptians were judged

of being incapable of winning the war because they were
coward and not modern
•  2. the disparity between Said’s personal experience as an Arab
and the representation of the Arabs by great Western artists like
Disraeli, Flaubert, Delacroix

Video answers:
Said on Orientalism

•  What is the repertory of orientalist images?
•  The sensual oriental woman, the mysterious, marvellous and

monstrous East, its static life… Orientals are all the same,
whether they are in India or Egypt or Syria, whether they live in
the past or in the present: an image outside of history, eternal.
It is a creation of an ideal other

•  What is Orientalism as far as Imperialism is concerned?
•  Said locates the construction of Orientalism in the history of the

imperial conquest. Orientalism provided the tool of
understanding the natives and subduing them easier.

•  Does Orientalism present itself as objective knowledge?
•  Yes, it does

Video answers:
Said on Orientalism

•  Why was Napoleon’s invasion of the Egypt in 1798 a new kind
of imperial and colonial conquest?

•  It was not only a conquest through an army of soldiers but also
through an army of scientists, historians, philologists, who had
to record Egypt not for the Egyptians but for the Europeans.
This is Orientalism: production of (biased) knowledge about the
East.

•  What does this massive orientalist production of knowledge
show to the Europeans?

•  It showed the power and prestige of Modern European
countries that could see and understand things that the natives
could not.

ORIENTALISM AS A DISCOURSE

Michel Foucault’s discourse or power/knowledge

In the simplest sense “discourse” is conversation or information.
Foucault uses the term to denote any coherent body of statements that
produces a self‐confirming account of reality; a system of knowledge
through which reality is created.

If it is true that we are the sum of our experiences (the knowledge we
encounter), then those in control, for instance, of our early life
experiences have enormous power. In an isolated family, a child's
knowledge depends upon just a few people who create the child's
identity and reality. The same can be true as far as society is concerned.

Foucaldian discourse, then, joins power and knowledge, and the power
of discourse follows from our acceptance of the reality which is
(re)presented (Cfr. P. Weir’s The Truman Show)

ORIENTALISM AS A HEGEMONY

Gramsci’s cultural hegemony

“Gramsci
 has
 made
 the
 useful
 analy)c
 dis)nc)on
 between
 CIVIL
 AND
 POLITICAL
 
SOCIETY
 in
 which
 the
 former
 is
 made
 up
 of
 voluntary
 (or
 at
 least
 ra)onal
 and
 non-­‐
coercive)
 affilia)ons
 like
 schools,
 families,
 and
 unions,
 the
 laTer
 of
 state
 
ins)tu)ons
 (the
 army,
 the
 police,
 the
 central
 bureaucracy)
 whose
 role
 in
 the
 polity
 
is
 direct
 domina)on.
 Culture,
 of
 course,
 is
 to
 be
 found
 opera)ng
 within
 civil
 
society,
 where
 the
 influence
 of
 ideas,
 of
 ins)tu)ons,
 and
 of
 other
 persons
 works
 
not
 through
 DOMINATION
 but
 by
 what
 Gramsci
 calls
 CONSENT.
 In
 any
 society
 not
 
totalitarian,
 then,
 certain
 cultural
 forms
 predominate
 over
 others,
 just
 as
 certain
 
ideas
 are
 more
 influen)al
 than
 others;
 the
 form
 of
 this
 cultural
 leadership
 is
 what
 
Gramsci
 has
 iden)fied
 as
 HEGEMONY,
 an
 indispensable
 concept
 for
 any
 
understanding
 of
 cultural
 life
 in
 the
 industrial
 West.
 It
 is
 hegemony,
 or
 rather
 the
 
result
 of
 cultural
 hegemony
 at
 work,
 that
 gives
 Orientalism
 the
 durability
 and
 the
 
strength
 I
 have
 been
 speaking
 about
 so
 far”
 
 

(Said,
 Orientalism,
 pp.
 6-­‐7)
 

ORIENTALISM AS A HEGEMONY

“Under the general heading of ‘knowledge of the Orient’,
and within the umbrella of WESTERN HEGEMONY OVER
THE ORIENT during the period from the end of the
eighteenth century, there emerged a complex Orient suitable
for study in the academy, for display in the museum, for
reconstruction in the colonial office, for theoretical
illustration in anthropological, biological, linguistic, racial,
and historical theses about mankind and the universe, for
instances of economic and sociological theories of
development, revolution, cultural personality, national or
religious character”

(Said,
 Orientalism,
 pp.
 7-­‐8)

The “army” of Orientalist
hegemonic discourse

“A
  very
  large
  mass
  of
  writers,
  among
  whom
  are
 
poets,
  novelists,
  philosophers,
  poli)cal
  theorists,
 
economists,
  and
  imperial
  administrators,
  have
 
accepted
 the
 basic
 dis)nc)on
 between
 East
 and
 West
 
as
  the
  star)ng
  point
  for
  elaborate
  theories,
  epics,
 
novels,
  social
  descrip)ons,
  and
  poli)cal
  accounts
 
concerning
  the
  Orient,
  its
  people,
  customs,
  “mind”,
 
des)ny
 ,
 and
 so
 on”.
 
 


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 (Orientalism,
 p.
 2)
 


 

ORIENTALISMS

1.  ORIENTALISM
 AS
 AN
 ACADEMIC
 DISCIPLINE:
 “anyone
 who
 teaches,
 
writes
 about,
 or
 researches
 the
 Orient
 ...
 is
 an
 orientalist,
 and
 what
 
he
 or
 she
 does
 is
 Orientalism”
 

2.  ORIENTALISM
 AS
 A
 DISCOURSE
 (Foucault’s
 “discursive
 forma)ons”):
 
a
 system
 of
 thoughts
 composed
 of
 ideas,
 ahtudes,
 beliefs,
 
ins)tu)ons
 and
 prac)ces
 that
 systema)cally
 construct
 the
 subjects
 
and
 the
 worlds
 of
 which
 they
 speak.
 

3.  ORIENTALISM
 AS
 A
 HEGEMONY
 for
 domina)ng,
 reconstruc)ng
 and
 
having
 authority
 over
 the
 Orient
 

Orientalism produces hegemonic
binary oppositions such as…

EAST / WEST
—  Powerless / Powerful
—  Feminine / Masculine
—  Irrational / Rational
—  Depraved / Virtuous
—  Childlike / Mature
—  Despotism / Self-government
—  Backward / Advanced (see quote on culture in Vivan, p. 93 + par. Prinicipe

Alberto pp. 109-10 + quote arretratezza orientale in Said, p. 41)

Orientalist “scientific observations”

The
 orientalists
 recorded
 their
 observa)ons
 based
 upon
 
commonly-­‐held
 assump)ons
 about
 ‘the
 Orient’
 as
 a
 
mythic
 place
 of
 exo)cism,
 moral
 laxity,
 sexual
 
degeneracy
 and
 so
 forth.
 
 
These
 observa)ons
 (which
 were
 really
 not
 observa)ons
 
at
 all)
 were
 presented
 as
 scien)fic
 truths
 
 -­‐
 the
 discipline
 
of
 Orientalism
 -­‐
 that
 in
 their
 turn
 func)oned
 to
 jus)fy
 
the
 appropriateness
 of
 colonial
 domina)on.
 
 

 

Odalisque with a Slave, sexual degeneracy
Jean-Auguste Dominique Ingres,
During the 19th
1839-1840 (oil on canvas) century,
odalisques,
female slaves
or concubines
in a harem,
became
common
fantasy figures,
being featured
in many erotic
paintings from
that era.

Odalisque (La Sultane) sexual degeneracy
Ferdinand Roybet,

mid-1870s (oil on canvas)

Inspecting New Arrivals sexual degeneracy
Giulio Rosati
Before 1917
(oil on canvas)

"Les petits voyages de Paris – Plaisirs”, 1930

sexual degeneracy

French harem
fantasy with a
black eunuch
servant, who
is famously
inoffensive.
The link
between
popularized
orientalism
and
libidinization is
obvious.

The Snake Charmer exoticism
Jean Paul Gerome, late 1860s

Linda Nochlin, excerpt from Imaginary Orient, p. 35

“Surely it [The Snake Charmer] may most profitably be
considered as a visual document of nineteenth-century
colonialist ideology, an iconic distillation of the
Westerner's notion of the Oriental couched [expressed]
in the language of a would-be [se dicente] transparent
naturalism…
The title, however, doesn't really tell the complete story;
the painting should really be called The Snake Charmer
and His Audience, for we are clearly meant to look at
both performer and audience as parts of the same
spectacle”.

Linda Nochlin, from Imaginary Orient, p. 35

“We are not, as we so often are in
Impressionist works of this period - works like
Manet's or Degas's Café Concerts, for
example, which are set in Paris - invited to
identify with the audience”.

Edgar Degas, Café-Concert, 1876-1877

Linda Nochlin, from Imaginary Orient, p. 35

“The watchers huddled [gathered] against the
ferociously detailed tiled wall in the background of
Gerome's painting are as resolutely alienated from
us as is the act they watch with such childish,
trancelike concentration. Our gaze is meant to
include both the spectacle and its spectators as
objects of picturesque delectation”.

Linda Nochlin, from Imaginary Orient, p. 35

“Clearly, these black and
brown folk are mystified -
but then again, so are
we. Indeed, the defining
mood of the painting is
mystery, and it is created
by a specific pictorial
device. We are permitted
only a beguiling
[attracting] rear view of
the boy holding the
snake.”.

Linda Nochlin, from Imaginary Orient, p. 35

“A full frontal view, which would reveal
unambiguously both his sex and the fullness of his
dangerous performance, is denied us. And the
insistent, sexually charged mystery at the center of
this painting signifies a more general one:

the mystery of the East itself, a standard topos of
Orientalist ideology”.

(See Gualtieri’s essay “Il sè e l’altro……”)

The (orientalised) Orient

—  The Orient, then, became AN IDEA that benefitted the
West by holding up a mirror-image of dominant western
values and beliefs. It stood for all that was regarded as
alien and inferior: THE WEST’S ‘OTHER’ (The Orient has
been otherised).

—  Crucially, the ECONOMIC AND MILITARY POWER of the
imperialists was complemented by their CULTURAL
POWER; they were able to convert this set of ‘commonly-
held assumptions’, favourable to themselves, into the
‘truth’ through their enormous capacity to produce and
circulate representations (discourses).

The Oriental

—  The Oriental is the person represented by such
thinking. The man is depicted as FEMININE,
weak, yet strangely DANGEROUS because
poses a threat to white, Western women. The
woman is both eager to be dominated and
strikingly EXOTIC.

—  The Oriental is a SINGLE IMAGE, a radical
generalization, a stereotype that crosses
countless cultural and national boundaries. A
massive, immense generalisation.

The Orientals and self-government

Arthur James Balfour’s MP speech in 1910

“WESTERN nations as soon as they emerge into history show the
beginnings of those capacities for self-government . . . You may look
through the whole history of the Orientals in what is called, broadly
speaking, the East, and YOU NEVER FIND TRACES OF SELF-
GOVERNMENT. All their great centuries—and they have been very
great—have been passed under DESPOTISMS, under absolute
government. All their great contributions to civilisation—and they
have been great—have been made under that form of government.
Conqueror has succeeded conqueror; one domination has followed
another; but never in all the revolutions of fate and fortune have you
seen one of those nations of its own motion establish what we, from a
Western point of view, call self-government. That is the fact. It is not a
question of superiority and inferiority”.

The Orientals and accuracy

British Consul in Egypt Lord Cromer’s Modern Egypt, 1908

“Sir Alfred Lyall once said to me: "Accuracy is abhorrent to the
Oriental mind … Want of accuracy, which easily degenerates into
untruthfulness, is in fact the main characteristic of the Oriental mind.
THE EUROPEANS a close reasoner; his statements of fact are devoid
of any ambiguity; he is a natural logician, albeit he may not have
studied logic; he is by nature sceptical and requires proof before he
can accept the truth of any proposition; his trained intelligence works
like a piece of mechanism. THE MIND OF THE ORIENTAL, on the
other hand, like his picturesque streets, is eminently wanting in
symmetry. His reasoning is of the most slipshod [unsystematic]
description. ALTHOUGH THE ANCIENT ARABS ACQUIRED IN A
SOMEWHAT HIGHER DEGREE THE SCIENCE OF DIALECTICS,
THEIR DESCENDANTS ARE SINGULARLY DEFICIENT IN THE
LOGICAL FACULTY”.

The Orientals and the Southerners?

“ORIENTALS OR ARABS are thereafter shown to be gullible
[naïve], ‘devoid of energy and initiative’, much given to ‘fulsome
flattery [excessive adulation]’, intrigue, cunning, and unkindness
to animals; Orientals cannot walk on either a road or a pavement
(their disordered minds fail to understand what the clever
European grasps immediately, that roads and pavements are
made for walking); Orientals are inveterate [incorrigible] liars,
they are ‘lethargic and suspicious’, and in everything oppose the
clarity, directness, and nobility of the ANGLO-SAXON RACE”.

(Said, Orientalism, pp. 39-39)