EDWARD SAID ORIENTALISM QUOTES

Here are 24 quotes about Orientalism by Edward Said:

“Orientalism is the collective making of the Other into an object of knowledge and a domain of expertise.”

“Orientalism is a style of thought based upon an ontological and epistemological distinction made between ‘the Orient’ and ‘the Occident’.”

“Orientalism is fundamentally a political doctrine willed over the Orient because the Orient was weaker than the West.”

“Orientalism [is] a systematic discipline by which European culture was able to manage – and even produce – the Orient politically, sociologically, militarily, ideologically, scientifically, and imaginatively.”

“Orientalism can be discussed and analyzed as the corporate institution for dealing with the Orient.”

“Orientalism… depends for its strategy on metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, and double entendre.”

“Orientalism is a style of thought based upon an ontological and epistemological distinction made between “the Orient” and (most of the time) “the Occident.”

“The Orient was almost a European invention, and had been since antiquity a place of romance, exotic beings, haunting memories and landscapes, remarkable experiences.”

“The Orient is… an integral part of European material civilization and culture.” “The Orient has helped to define Europe (or the West) as its contrasting image, idea, personality, experience.”

“What one profits from legitimately [in Orientalist explanation and projection], too often one takes by force.”

“Orientalism can be reactive (rather than proactive), for it anticipates by making statements about and for “the West”.”

“The first thing Orientalism does is simply fabricate a difference between the languages, races, religions, and civilizations of the East and West.” DHOKEBAAZ LOG QUOTES

“One would prefer not to have to think about Orientalism anymore: it has run its course.”

“We ought not to study Orientalism in the hope of gaining some sort of power over the Orient, but rather to develop a better understanding of its historical and cultural complexities.”

“Orientalism is a form of knowledge and power.”

“Orientalism allowed Europeans to transcend their own parochial cultural ideas and dominate the Orient through knowledge.”

“Orientalism [is] fundamentally a political doctrine willed over the Orient because the Orient was weaker than the West.”

“Knowledge about the Orient can illuminate certain aspects of European culture, but it does not in any way constitute culture.”

“The Orient is not only adjacent to Europe; it is also the place of Europe’s greatest and richest and oldest colonies, the source of its civilizations and languages, its cultural contestant, and one of its deepest and most recurring images of the Other.”

“Every empire… established a division of spaces and peoples…and an ineradicable degree of ignorance about those divided.”

“Let us not forget that in most cases the Orientalist discourse is a discourse of power.”

“The Orient was valued, “discovered”, invented and constructed… by Western intellectuals, writers, and artists.”

“The Orient that appears in Orientalism, then, is a system of representations framed by political forces.