Ancient Greek Orientalism. See Greek Orientalism (Ancient).

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Ancient Orientalism

 

Orientalist scholars in the 19th century and well into the 20th century used this term generally to describe what they imagined to be the thought-ways and life-ways of civilizations in the distant past from Egypt to India to China. They tended to focus on ancient religious and philosophical systems, which they saw as being intimately related to each other and evident in ancient literature and in such things as temple inscriptions. They constructed those "ancient Orientalisms" to be essentially exotic and the opposite of the modern West and believed it almost impossible for Westerners of their time to understand ancient ways of thinking and believing. They also believed that the modernization and Westernization of Asian nations displaced those ancient Orientalisms. In effect, then, Orientalist scholars and others imagined ancient Orientalism to be an archetype, a single "thing" that was primitive, rigidly hierarchical, mystical, spiritualistic, and philosophically dualistic. It was this archetypal ancient Orientalism that Orientalist scholars studied as they sought to discern both the nature of ancient Orientalism and its connections with later times. Occasionally, some scholars used this term to describe traditional societies in places other than Asia, such as Polynesia. This term was also used to describe old-fashioned "Oriental" styles in the arts and in fashion. Protestant biblical and ecclesiastical scholars used this term to describe the social, cultural, and intellectual context of the Bible in biblical times. On the one hand, they generally held that the Old Testament was immersed in the systems of ancient Orientalisms, which explained many of the seeming contradictions and archaisms it contains such as anthropomorphic treatments of God. Protestant biblical scholars and others employed their putative insights into the Old Testament's ancient Orientalist context to defend the Bible against its detractors while other scholars argued that those Orientalisms pointed to the deficiency of the Christian scriptures. On the other hand, the majority of Protestant scholars also believed that ancient Orientalism was a great enemy of the early church, injecting into it foreign elements such as Gnosticism and monasticism. As Protestants, they held that ancient Orientalisms also infected Roman Catholicism long after ancient times. This term seems to have been fairly frequently used well into the 20th century. 

 

Since Edward W. Said (1978), modern-day scholars have largely used this term in the context of an on-going debate over the applicability of his notion of Orientalism to civilizations of the ancient past, which debate has focused largely on the ancient Greeks. Said discerned the presence of ideological Orientalism in ancient Greece and argued that latter-day Orientalism can be traced back to Greece. Scholars have in response (or reaction) fallen into three camps, some accepting Said's argument whole cloth, some rejecting it entirely, and others discerning in the ancient world only some elements of what might be called "Orientalism". Apart from Greece very little study has been done on the possible application of the notion of Orientalism to the ancient world making this term less significant now than it was in the 19th century and might otherwise be today. [revised 8/18]

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See also: Academic Orientalism, Aggressive Orientalism, Ancient Orientalism (Contemporary), Biblical Orientalism, Greek Orientalism (Ancient); Ideological Orientalism, Old Testament Orientalism, Pre-Modern Orientalism.

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Sources & Examples:  Before Said: August Blauvelt, The Present Religious Crisis (G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1882); B. O. Flower, “The Next Forward Step for Women; or, Thoughts on the Movement for Rational Dress.” The Arena 6 (1892); Philip C. Friese, Semitic Philosophy: Showing the Ultimate Social and Scientific Outcome of Original Christianity in Its Conflict with Surviving Ancient Heathenism (S. C. Griggs & Co., 1890); O. D. Miller, “Catholicism and Universalism, from the Standpoint of Philosophy.”  The Universalist Quarterly & General Review  NS 23, (1886);  “The Science of History.” The Westminster Review (American Edition) 115 (1881).  Since Said: Cristopher E. Forth, “Fat, Desire and Disgust in the Colonial Imagination.” History Workshop Journal 74 (2012); Michal Gawlikowski, “Zoroastrian Echoes in the Mithraeum at Hawarte, Syria.”  ARAM 26 (2014); Yang Huang, “Orientalism in the Ancient World: Greek and Roman Images of the Orient from Homer to Virgil” Bulletin of the Institute for Mediterranean Studies 5 (2007;  A. Bernard Knapp,“Orientalization and Prehistoric Cyprus: The Social Life of Oriental Goods.”  In Debating Orientalization: Multidisciplinary Approaches to Change in the Ancient Mediterranean (Equinox Press, 2010); Naoíse Mac Sweeney, Foundation Myths and Politics in Ancient Ionia (Cambridge, 2013); Rod S. Sachs, “Chaucer’s De-colonized Custance” (M.A. thesis, Texas at Arlington, 2014); Edward W. Said, Orientalism (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978); Phiroze Vasunia, "Hellenism and Empire: Reading Edward Said." Parallax 9, 4 (2003).

 

Anglo-French Orientalism

 

Edward W. Said (1978)  uses this term prominently to describe the combined features of French Orientalism and British Orientalism as being the heart and core of European Orientalism from the late 18th century until after World War I. Britain and France, according to this notion, were the dominant colonial European powers in Asia and influenced each other’s parallel and overlapping experience and understanding of the Orient. Anglo-French Orientalism was, thus, a dualistic ideology that imagined “the Orient” has having a single essential, irredeemable identity that was inferior to the West and that justified European colonialism. This ideology, according to Said, was articulated by a range of French and British academic, artistic, literary, political, economic, and religious agencies, institutions, and movements to the extent that Orientalism suffused Anglo-French perceptions of Asia and profoundly influenced those perceptions across Europe—although it must be acknowledged that there were other Orientalist voices in Europe as well, notably German Orientalism. Scholars of Orientalism since Said widely and frequently use this term, usually in passing and on the assumption that the notion of Anglo-French Orientalism is historically accurate. They often cite Said directly or implicitly when they use the term. Daniel M. Varisco (2017) is a rare example of a scholar who questions that assumption, largely on theoretical grounds. In addition to this term, a small handful of scholars use the cognate terms of “Franco-British Orientalism,” “English-French Orientalism,” or “British-French Orientalism”. In sum, the widespread use of this term witnesses to the profound impact that Said continues to have in the study of European classical Orientalism. [9/22]

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See also: Academic Orientalism, Aesthetic Orientalism, Classical Orientalism, Deep Orientalism, European Orientalism, French Orientalism, Literary Orientalism, Saidian Orientalism, Traditional Orientalism, Western Orientalism.

 

Sources & Examples: Anglo-French Orientalism: Stephanie Cronin, “Introduction: Edward Said, Russian Orientalism and Soviet Iranology.” Iran Studies 48 (2015); Snežana Dabić, W.B. Yeats and Indian Thought (Cambridge Scholars, 2016); David N. Geraghty, “Old Stories, New Authors: Orientalism, Cosmopolitanism and India” (Ph.D. diss, Monash U., 2014); Lim Jie-hyun, “Imagining West and Self in the Global Easts: On Poland and Korea.” In Western Historiography in Asia (De Gruyter, 2022); Valerie Kennedy, Edward Said: A Critical Introduction (Polity Press, 2013); Bülent Küçük, “Borders of Europe: Fantasies of identity in the enlargement debate on Turkey.” New Perspectives on Turkey 41 (2009); Sonja Lawrenson, “Prudence and Prejudicde in Maria Edgeworth’s ‘Murad the Unlucky’ (1804).” In Ireland’s Imperial Connections, 1775-1947 (Springer, 2019); Joseph Lennon, “Irish Orientalism: An Overview.” In Ireland and Postcolonial Theory (U. of Notre Dame, 2003); Karin E. Mæland, “A Study of Hermeneutics in the Approach to Indian Philosophy in the West” (M.Phil. thesis, U. of Oslo, 2019); Nataliia Pestereva, “Russia, Empre, and the Case of the North Caucaus, 18202-2013” (Ph.D. diss., U. of Alberta, 2019); Raejeswari S. Rajan, “After ‘Orientalism’: Colonialism and English Literary Studies in India.” Social Scientist 14 (1986); Edward W. Said, Orientalism (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978); Daniel M. Varisco, Reading Orientalism: Said and the Unsaid (U. of Washington, 2017). Franco-British Orientalism: Rasoul Alikbari, “Nathaniel HJawthorne and the Meiosis of Americanism in The Marble Faun.” Criterion 7 (2014).

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Animal Orientalism

 

Scholars use this term only very rarely and then only in passing to describe ways in which animals are imagined, constructed, and exploited as an essentially inferior "Other" that is the opposite of the human race. Sherryl Vint uses the term sapien Orientalism and draws parallels between colonialism and the relationship between humanity and animals in early science fiction. This term is also used very rarely in the art world to describe artistic renderings, notably paintings, of animals in what is taken to be an exotic, "Orientalist" style. A form of this Orientalism, simian Orientalism, however, is much more frequently used.

 

See also: Aesthetic Orientalism, Ideological Orientalism, Simian Orientalism.

 

Sources & Examples: David Moses, “Writing Animals, Speaking Animals: The Displacement and Placement of the Animal in Medieval Literature”  (Ph.D. diss., Edinburgh, 2003);  Sherryl Vint, Animal Alterity: Science Fiction and the Question of the Animal (Liverpool U., 2010).

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Anthropological Orientalism.  See Orientalist Anthropology.  And See Ethnographic Orientalism (2nd Usage).

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Anti-Arab Orientalism. See Arab Orientalism.

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Anti-Asian Orientalism. See Asian Orientalism.

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Anti-Islamic Orientalism

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Scholars use this term as a synonym for Saidian Orientalism as described by Edward W. Said (1978), emphasizing particularly the Western Orientalist stereotyping of Islam as supposedly backward, sexist, violent, and at its worst closely allied to terrorism. It is neither frequently used nor rare. [revised 8/18]

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See also: Dogmatic Orientalism, Hard Orientalism, Ideological Orientalism, Islamic Orientalism, Saidian Orientalism, Traditional Orientalism.

 

Sources & Examples: Layla F. Abdeen & Muna M. Abd-Rabbo, "Orientalist Discourse in John Updike’s The Coup: A Saidian/Foucauldian Perspective." Dirasat: Human and   Social Sciences 45 (2018); Lisa Lowe, “The Worldliness of Intimacy.” In Edward Said: The Legacy of a Public Intellectual (Melbourne U., 2007); Mark Woodward, Java, Indonesia and Islam (Springer, 2011).

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Anti-Jewish Orientalism. See Jewish Orientalism.

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Anti-Muslim Orientalism. See Anti-Islamic Orientalism.

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Antinomic Orientalism

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Christopher T. Fan uses this term to describe what is generally assumed to be a key aspect of the fundamentally dualistic nature of the notion of Orientalism, especially as it is used by Edward W. Said (Orientalism, 1978).  There is a Self and an Other and a West and an East, that is, which are seen to be essentially and irredeemably different.  In the Saidian schema, they are also treated as being “antinomic,” i.e. fundamentally in unresolvable conflict and opposition with each other.  Orientalist ideologies pit Self against Other and West against East.  Fan examines the efficacy of this basic structure of Saidian Orientalism for understanding developments in the notion of Techno-Orientalism since the 1980s.  Use of this term is extremely rare.  [1/21]

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See also: Postmodern Orientalism, Saidian Orientalism, Structural Orientalism, Techno-Orientalism.

 

Sources & Examples: Foram Chandara, “Identity in Postcyberpunk and Games,” n.d. At DSpace Repository (http://14.139.121.106:8080/xmlui/), accessed 1/21; Tara Fickle, The Race Card: From Gaming Technologies to Model Minorities (New York U., 2019); Christopher T. Fan, “American Techno-Orientalism: Speculative Fiction and the Rise of China.” (Ph.D. diss., U. of California, Berkeley, 2016); Christopher T. Fan, "Techno-Orientalism with Chinese Characteristics: Maureen F. McHugh’s China Mountain Zhang." Journal of Transnational American Studies 6 (2015).

 

Anti-Orientalism

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Scholars generally use this frequently used term in two distinct and different ways. First, scholars at times associate this term with Edward W. Said's critique of the field of Oriental studies ("Orientalism") and those scholars who have embraced his perspective. Said is usually considered to be the premier anti-Orientalist, and "anti-Orientalism" is thus closely associated with Saidian Orientalism and its critique of Orientalism. This term is particularly used by scholars who either reject Said's analysis entirely or consider it to be seriously flawed in particular ways. Others including some Asian scholars, however, use this term in a more positive way, embracing its anti-Orientalist critique of ideological Orientalism. Second, Scholars also use this term to describe historical anti-Asian racism in the United States and Canada, especially on the West Coasts of both nations. [4/17]

 

See also: Dialectical Orientalism, Ideological Orientalism, Racial Orientalism, Saidian Orientalism.

 

Sources & Examples: First Usage: Peter Gran, “Orientalism’sContribution to World History and Middle Eastern History 35 Years Later.”  In Debating Orientalism (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013); Rahila Gupta, “Taking a Flawed Stand Against Orientalism.” At 50.50 Inclusive Democracy (www.opendemocracy.net), accessed 4/17; Bernard Lewis, Islam and the West (Oxford, 1993); S. Sayyid, A Fundamental Fear: Eurocentrism and the Emergence of Islamism, 2nd ed. (Zed Books, 2003); Emmanuel Szurek, “’Go West’: Variations on Kemalist Orientalism.” In After Orientalism: Critical Perspectives on Western Agency and Eastern Re-appropriations (Brill, 2015).  Second Usage: Roger Daniels, The Politics of Prejudice: The Anti-Japanese Movement in California and the Struggle for Japanese Exclusion (California, 1962); Michael Kluckner, Vanishing British Columbia (UPC Press & U. of Washington, 2005).

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Anti-Semitic Orientalism

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This term itself appears rarely in the scholarly literature; but when it does appear, it is used to refer to a form of historical European ideological Orientalism, originating in the 19th century. That Orientalism imagined a negative stereotype of the Jewish people, constructing them as being the "Eastern Jews" (Ostjude) who were essentially alien, weak, feminine-like, and dangerous to Western civilization. Even when this term itself is not used, several scholars have given attention to Edward W. Said's observation that Semitic Orientalisms and anti-Semitism have the same origin and are parallel phenomenon in important ways. Frank F. Scherer has used the Fruedian metaphor, ArchaeOrientalism, to describe Sigmund Frued's acceptance of the categories of anti-Semitic Orientalism while seeking to resist those categories by imagining a strong, male Westernized Jew in opposition to the Ostjude.

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See also: Fascist Orientalism, Jewish Orientalism, Nazi Orientalism, Ideological Orientalism, Racial Orientalism, Saidian Orientalism, Semitic Orientalism, Sexual Orientalism, Zionist Orientalism.

 

Sources & Examples: Donna K. Heizer, Jewish-German Identity in the Orientalist Literature of Else Lasker-Schüler (Camden House, 1996): Ivan D. Kalmar, "Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia: The Formation of a Secret." Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge 7 (2009); James Pasto, "Islam's 'Strange Secret Sharer': Orientalism, Judaism, and the Jewish Question." Comparative Studies in Society and History 40 (1998): Andrew N. Rubin, “Orientalism and the History of Western Anti-Semitism: The Coming End of an American Taboo.”  History of the Present 5 (2015); Frank F. Scherer, The Freudian Orient: Early Psychoanalysis, Anti-Semitic Challenge, and the Vicissitudes of Orientalist Discourse (Karnac Books, 2015); Ella Shohat, “Taboo Memories and Diasporic Visions: Columbus, Palestine, and Arab Jews.” In Genealogies of Orientalism: History, Theory, Politics (Nebraska, 2008).

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Anti-Western Orientalism

 

This term is rarely used. When it is used, scholars generally use it in one of two ways. First, Jie-Hyun Lim and a few other scholars use it to describe the use of ideological Orientalist discourses and practices by Asian ("Oriental") scholars who seek to create a positive, distinct national self-image and history over against the West and other Asian nations or groups. In effect, Asian Anti-Western Orientalists seek to use ideological Orientalist strategies to raise themselves to the status of the West in its place. This term thus describes a form of reverse Orientalism. Second, this term is very rarely used to describe Edward W. Said's Orientalism (1978) as "anti-Western." [5/16]

 

See also: Reverse Orientalism, Saidian Orientalism, Self-Orientalism.

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Sources & Examples: Theodore Dalrymple, “The Case for Mistrust Muslims,” 2007. At Los Angeles Times (www.latimes.com), accessed 5/16; Jie-Hyun Lim, “Configuration of Orient and Occident in the Global Chain of National Histories: Writing National Histories in Northeast Asia.” In Narrating the Nation: Representations in History, Media, and the Arts (Berghahn Books, 2008).

 

Applied Orientalism

 

Scholars usually use this term in one of two related ways. First, it is most often used as a simple adjective, rather than as a technical term, indicating the use (application) of ideological Orientalist content and images ("discourses") in a given situation. Second, Alexander Morrison and others use it to described the ways in which ideological Orientalist scholars intend their work to advance Western policy goals. Their stereotypical Orientalist interventions usually involve colonies or colonial-like situations such as the occupation of foreign territory.

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See also: Ideological Orientalism, Manifest Orientalism.

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Sources & Examples: T. N. Harper, The End of Empire and the Making of Malaya (Cambridge, 1999); Baruch Kimmerling, Clash of Identities: Explorations in Israeli and Palestinian Societies (Columbia, 2008); Alexander Morrison, “’Applied Orientalism’ in British India and Tsarist Turkestan.” Comparative Studies in Society & History 51 (2009).

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Arab Orientalism

 

Scholars use this term to describe several different and contradictory forms of ideological Orientalism, including: (1) Arab Orientalist-like discourses directed disparagingly against other Arabs (Determann terms this usage inter-Arab Orientalism.); (2) Western ideological Oriental discourses directed against Arabs (often called anti-Arab Orientalism); (3) as a synonym for the terms Islamic Orientalism and Arabic Orientalism; and, less frequently, (4) as indigenous Orientalist-like, essentializing Arab ideologies intended to support the aspirations of Arab peoples. In sum, this term is sometimes used to describe Orientalists ideologies imagined and constructed by Arabs themselves, and sometimes it is used to describe Orientalist ideologies directed against them.

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See also: Arabic Orientalism, Ideological Orientalism, Islamic Orientalism, Orientalism in Reverse.

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Sources & Examples: Matthias Determann, “Review of A History of the Arabian Peninsula.” Bulletin of SOAS 73 (2010); Zaanab Ibrahim, “The Arab Orient in Edgar Allan Poe.” LURe: Literary Undergraduate Research 3 (2012); Martin Thomas, The French North African Crisis: Colonial Breakdown and Anglo-French Relations, 1945-62 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2000).

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Arabic Orientalism

 

Scholars and others use this term usually in one of two ways. First, some use it as a synonym for the term Islamic Orientalism in all three of that term's meanings, that is: (1) as the academic study of the Arab Orient; (2) as a larger body of Western writings about the Arab Orient usually influenced by academic Orientalists; and (3) (and rarely) as describing Arab works concerning their own culture and situation especially vis-à-vis the West, which discourses seem to be similar to ideological Orientalism. Second, scholars and others use this term to describe a supposedly Arab-inspired ornamental or aesthetic style found in a range of arts including music, sculpture, moving pictures, architecture, and even as a description of an equine blood line (the Lipizzaner). [12/17]

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See also: Academic Orientalism, Aesthetic Orientalism, Arab Orientalism, Ideological Orientalism, Islamic Orientalism.

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Sources & Examples: Sivan Emmanual, “Orientalism Polemics,” n.d. At Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (http://in.bgu.ac.il), accessed 12/17; John Haines, Music in Films on the Middle Ages: Authenticity vs. Fantasy (Routledge, 2014); David Malvinni, The Gypsy Caravan: From Real Roma to Imaginary Gypsies in Western Music and Film (Routldege, 2004); Edward W. Said, Orientalism (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978); Maria Todorova, Imagining the Balkans (Oxford, 2009).

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Arch-Orientalism (Arch Orientalism)

 

Scholars only rarely use the term "arch-Orientalism," but they do use "arch-Orientalist" frequently and often pejoratively to refer to individuals, texts, works of art, or other elements that radically exemplify ideological Orientalism and/or Saidian Orientalism. In several instances, for example, Bernard Lewis is cited as an example of an arch-Orientalist. More rarely this term is used in a more neutral, less critical sense to describe individuals, etc. that fully embody Orientalism. Although not intended to be used as a technical term, this term is yet another synonym for ideological Orientalism and Saidian Orientalism. [4/17]

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See also: Hard Orientalism, Ideological Orientalism, Saidian Orientalism.

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Sources & Examples: Kathryn S. Freeman, British Women Writers and the Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1785-1835: Re-Orienting Anglo-India (Routledge, 2014): Jim Quilty, “Ice Cream for the Soul: A Journey into Syria,” 2002.  At The Daily Star  (http://www.dailystar.com.lb), accessed 4/17; Emmanuel Szurek, “’Go West’: Variations on Kemalist Orientalism.” In After Orientalism: Critical Perspectives on Western Agency and Eastern Re-appropriations (Brill, 201).

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Archaeological Orientalism

 

Scholars generally use this term in two distinct ways. First, some use it in light of Edward W. Said's utilization of the work of Michel Foucault (1926-1984) in his analysis of Orientalism to describe a critical, historical approach to Orientalism, which understands it to be comprised of sets of social-cultural ideological "discourses" that imagine and frame Oriental Others without reference to the actual realities of Asians. "Archaeology," in this sense, means systems of thought and knowledge, that is,"discourses". This usage is infrequent and sometimes used to describe instances of reverse Orientalism whereby peoples who are suffering under Orientalist stereotypes and prejudices development their own Orientalist "discourses" ("archaeologies") to reframe their identity in positive ways. Second, other scholars use this term to refer specifically to the field of archaeology as a form of academic Orientalism and thus to the ways in which archaeologists imagine and construct the peoples whose artifacts they study, seeking to fit them into preconceived and ideologically grounded historical frameworks—sometimes treating them as if they were essentially "exotic". By-and-large, these scholars use the term Orientalist archaeology rather than archaeological Orientalism. [revised 5/17]

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See also: Academic Orientalism, Ideological Orientalism, Reverse Orientalism, Saidian Orientalism.

ArchaeOrientalism. See Anti-Semitic Orientalism.

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Sources & Examples: First Usage: John M. Efron, German Jewry and the Allure of the Sephardic (Princeton, 2016); Layla Saleh, “(Muslim) Woman in Need of Empowerment.” International Feminist Journal of Politics 18 (2016); Bryan S. Turner, "On the Concept of Axial Space: Orientalism and the Originary." Journal of Social Archaeology 1 (2001).  Second Usage: Morag M. Kersel, “Fractured Oversight: the ABCs of Cultural Heritage in Palestine After the Oslo Accords.” Journal of Social Archaeology 15 (2015); Oystein S. LaBianca, “Daily Life in the Shadow of Empire: A Food Systems Approach to the Archaeology of the Ottoman Period” (Paper, U. of New York at Binghamton, 1996); Michael Leadbetter, “Rediscovering Champa.” Explorations: A Graduate Student Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 12 (2014); James Preece, “Past Political, Present Tense, Future Perfect? The Concept of Political Intrinsicality in Archaeology.” The Post Hole 29 (2013); Frank F. Scherer, The Freudian Orient: Early Psychoanalysis, Anti-Semitic Challenge, and the Vicissitudes of Orientalist Discourse (Karnac Books, 2015); Bryan S. Turner, "On the Concept of Axial Space: Orientalism and the Originary." Journal of Social Archaeology 1 (2001).

 

ArchaeOrientalism. See Anti-Semitic Orientalism.

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Archetypal Orientalism

 

A very few scholars use this very rarely used term to describe the form of Orientalism originally described by Edward W. Said in his book, Orientalism (1978), that is, Saidian Orientalism.

 

See also: Saidian Orientalism.

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Sources & Examples: Sheng-mei Ma, Diaspora Literature and Visual Culture: Asia in Flight (Routledge, 2011); Geoffrey P. Nash, Travellers to the Middle East from Burckhardt to Thesiger: An Anthology (Anthem Press, 2011).

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Architectural Orientalism

 

Scholars use this term and the terms, Orientalist architecture and Orientalist structure(s), to describe the ways in which Western architecture is used to reinforce stereotypes of "Orientals" as being essentially exotic. While some date the origins of architectural Orientalism as far back as the 17th century, it was most popular in the latter 19th century; but even then it did not amount to a significant European architectural movement and was limited mainly to places of entertainment or leisure. The wide assortment of stereotypical styles and elements used in Orientalist architecture (such as domes and arches) has been thought to give buildings an exotic, fanciful, and even fantastical cast that recalls the mystique of far away places. Although Orientalist architects drew on designs and elements from several Asian cultures, especially Arab Islamic styles including especially Moorish architecture. Architectural Orientalism, however, differs from other forms of aesthetic Orientalism because it is physically embodied in fixed structures many of which were built in Asia as well as in the West. Various scholars have thus argued that it is often difficult to discern whether or not a particular building embodies ideological Orientalist content and images. This is for at least three reasons: first, it is not clear how a physical structure, often drawing on a widely eclectic variety of supposedly Asian designs actually communicates that Orientals are essentially exotic; second, architects often simply add Oriental decorative elements to a basically Western-style building again raising the issue of whether or not such buildings communicate Orientalist stereotypes; and, third, Oriental-style buildings were often constructed by the Western colonial powers in Asian cities to attempt to make their rule more palatable to those they ruled and thus are unusual among Orientalist discourses for their being addressed to Asian audiences rather than other Westerners—raising yet again the issue of whether or not they are "really" Orientalist at all. In addition, Chukhovich notes that Orientalist architecture has received less critical scholarly appraisal than other forms of aesthetic Orientalist expression, which means that its ideological uses and implications are also less well understood. Perhaps one of the most obviously Orientalist architectures found in Asia itself was one developed in Turkey that combined a mixture of European and supposedly Asian styles that is known as "Neo-Ottoman architecture." Orientalist designs have also been used by the tourist industry both in the West and in Asia. Jewish synagogues in Europe at times have drawn on Middle Eastern styles as a way to express Jewish identity as being distinct from other Europeans and to demonstrate their independence from European culture. The Royal Pavilion at Brighton, England, is a building that is cited most frequently as being an example of early European architectural Orientalism. Other buildings receiving attention include the Yenidze Tobacco and Cigarette Factory in Dresden, Germany, and P.T. Barnum's mansion in Westport, Connecticut, Iranistan.  Scholars use the terms, "architectural Orientalism" and "Orientalist architecture," relatively frequently and the term, "Orientalist structure(s)," much less often. [4/18; revised to add "Orientalist structure(s)," 12/20]

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See also: Aesthetic Orientalism, Art Deco Orientalism, Barbaric Orientalism, Demotic Orientalism, Eclectic Orientalism, Egyptomania, Ideological Orientalism, Jewish Orientalism, Kemalist Orientalism, Local Orientalism, Oriental Enthusiasm, Oriental Look, Orientalist Tourism, Seaside Orientalism.

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Sources & Examples: Architectural Orientalism & Orientalist Architecture: Adam, “Orientalism & Chinoiserie Architecture Around Europe,” 2012. At Travels of Adam (https://travelsofadam.com), accessed 4/18 ; Sibel Bozdoğan, “Journey to the East: Ways of Looking at the Orient and the Question of Representation.” Journal of Architectural Education 41 (1988); Steven Cairns, “The Stone Books of Orientalism.” In Colonial Modernities: Building, Dwelling and Architecture in British India and Ceylon (Routledge, 2007); Boris Chukhovich,“Orientalist Modes of Modernism in Architecture: Colonial/Postcolonial/Soviet,” 2014. At Études de Lettres (http://journals.openedition.org), accessed 4/18; Zeynep Çiğdem & Uysal Ürey, "The Use of Orientalist Stereotypes and the Production of Kitsch: Tourism Architecture in Turkey in the Face of Social Change." International Journal of Science Culture and Sport 1 (2013); Mark Crinson, Empire Building: Orientalism and Victorian Architecture (Routledge, 1996); Angie Jo, “Second-Hand Culture: Orientalist Architecture in Ottoman Istanbul,” 2013. At Cloudfront.net (http://dvqlxo2m2q99q.cloudfront.net), accessed 4/18; Tariq Khamis, “The Islamic City and Architectural Orientalism,” 2015. At Art and Architecture in the Arab World (https://arab-aa.com), accessed 3/18; Rudolf Klein, “Oriental-Style Synagogues in Austria-Hungary: Philosophy and Historical Significance.” Ars Judaica 2 (2006).  Orientalist Structure(s): Davy Depelchin, “Ambiguities in Terminology and Taxonomy as Factors in the Marginalization of Architectural Styles: The Case of Orientalism.” ABE Journal 1 (2012);  “Richard Hawkins at Richard Telles,” 2013. At Contemporary Art Daily (https://contemporaryartdaily.com), accessed 12/20; Winston Ho, “How Japanese and Chinese Traditions Contributed to New Orleans Architecture,” 2019. At Preservation Research Center of New Orleans (https://prcno.org), accessed 12/20; Ivan D. Kalmar, “Moorish Style: “Orientalism, the Jews, and Synagogue Architecture.” Jewish Social Studies 7 (2001); John M. MacKenzie, Orientalism: History, Theory and the Arts (Manchester U., 1995).

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Arctic Orientalism

 

Scholars use this term generally to describe the ways in which various peoples living in the northern polar regions, including Scandinavia, Greenland, and Canada, have been imagined and constructed as having essential, timeless, and exotic natures in ways that duplicate ideological Orientalism. Arctic Orientalists have sometimes constructed these native/indigenous peoples as noble savages who are children of nature although earlier Orientalist discourses imagined them as simply barbaric, backward, and sometimes violent. The Arctic Other, thus, is at once alluring and repulsive. Such constructions have been used to justify European colonialism in northern regions. Ann Fienup-Riordan is credited with first making the connection between Said's Orientalism and the North, and she originally used the term Eskimo Orientalism to describe Arctic Orientalism. This term is distinguished from the similar term, Arcticality, by its emphasis on imagining and constructing of Arctic peoples where "arcticality" emphasizes place and geography. [5/17]

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See also: Arcticality, Borealism, Ideological Orientalism, Saidian Orientalism, Scandinavian Orientalism.

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Sources & Examples: Erika Doane, “Introduction.”  In Putting the Arctic Back on the Map: A Progress Report in Anticipation of the Arctic Council’s Twentieth Anniversary (Washington, 2016); Lars Jensen, “Greenland, Arctic Orientalism and the Search for Definitions of a Contemporary Postcolonial Geography.”  KULT—Postkolonial Temaserie 12 (2015); Jay Johnston, “The Elf in Self: The Influences of Northern Mythology and Fauna on Contemporary Spiritual Subcultures.”  In Imagining the Supernatural North (Alberta, 2016); Gisli Pálaaon, Travelling Passions: The Hidden Life of Vilhjalmur Stefansson (Dartmouth, 2005); Kirsten Thisted, “De-Framing the Indigenous Body: Ethnography, Landscape and Cultural Belonging in the Art of the Pia Arke.”  Nordlit 29 (2012).

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Arcticality

 

Gisli Pálsson (2002) coined this term, drawing on the frequently used notion of "tropicality," and a limited number of scholars have since taken it up. They generally see this term as being closely associated with Edward W. Said's notion of Orientalism, and they use it to describe the ways in which European and North American nations have invented the Arctic zone as being a place of extreme weather that is both dangerous and exotic. It is the place where civilization ends, making it and its peoples the essential, radical Other that functions as a mirror image of the temperate, civilized nations to the south. As in the case of tropicality, science has played a key role in constructing Western images and knowledge of the Arctic North and facilitating its colonization. This term is distinguished from the similar term Arctic Orientalism by its emphasis on place and geography where Arctic Orientalism emphasizes the imagining and constructing of Arctic peoples. [5/17]

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See also: Academic Orientalism, Arctic Orientalism, Borealism, Climatic Orientalism, Environmental Orientalism, Geographical Orientalism, Ideological Orientalism, Quasi-Orientalism, Saidian Orientalism, Scandinavian Orientalism, Scientific Orientalism, Tropicality.

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Sources & Examples: Sebastian C. Galbo, “Thawing Legacies: Inuit Women, Modernisation and the Challenges of Cultural Liminality,” n.d.  At Cerebrtation (www.cerebration.org), accessed 5/17; Gísli Pálsson, (2002) “Arcticality: Gender, Race, and Geography in the Writings of V. Stefansson." In Narrating the Arctic: A Cultural History of Scientific Practice, 1800-1940 (Science History Publications, 2002); Sverker Sörlin, “Circumpolar Science: Scandinavian Approaches to the Arctic and the North Atlantic, ca. 1920 to 1960.” Science in Context 27 (2014).

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Armchair Orientalism. See Amateur Orientalism.

 

Art Deco Orientalism

 

A few scholars use this seldom-used term and the even more rarely-used term, "Orientalist Art Deco," to describe “Oriental” influences on the artistic style, Art Deco, which was popular in Western Europe and the United States in the 1920s and 1930s and which itself reflected the popularity of Orientalist styles in the arts including fashion.  Art Deco Orientalism had an impact on architectural styles, decorative household goods, advertising, and decorative styles more generally including on such motion pictures as Mata Hari (1921).  Yiman Wang (2010) argues that Anna May Wong (1905-1961) drew on Art Deco Orientalism in crafting her approach to acting.  In general, however, the relationship of Orientalism to Art Deco has received little critical scholarly study.  [8/19]

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See also: Aesthetic Orientalism, Architectural Orientalism, Cinematic Orientalism, Popular Orientalism.

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Sources & Examples: Art Deco Orientalism: Théry Béord & Achim Alan Merlo, "Orientalism in Celluloid: the Production of the ‘Crazy Year’." Social and Management Research Journal 14 (2017); Douglas Milewski, “Art Deco 101 - Origins of Art Deco: Orientalism and China,” 2016. At Livejournal (https://dacuteturtle.livejournal.com), accessed 8/19; Yiman Wang, “Anna May Wong: Toward Janus-Faced, Border-Crossing, ‘Minor’ Stardom’.” In Idols of Modernity: Movie Stars of the 1920s (Rutgers, 2010).  Orientalist Art Deco: Ross King, Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya: Negotiating Urban Space in Malaysia (NUS Press, 2008).

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Artificial Orientalism. See False Orientalism.

 

Artistic Orientalism. See Aesthetic Orientalism.

 

Aryan Orientalism

 

This is an obscure term from the 19th and early 20th centuries and is not used by modern-day scholars. Scholars used it, in particular, as the name for a field of academic Orientalism that studied the branch of ancient "Aryan" race known as the "Eastern" or "Asiatic" branch. More generally, Orientalist scholars used this term to refer to the religious and philosophical thought they attributed to ancient Aryans, which were imagined to be essentially Oriental—that is more spiritualist, disembodied from reality including especially physical reality, and from a Protestant Christian perspective a source of inimical heresies. [revised 8/18]

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See also: Academic Orientalism, Historical Orientalism, Traditional Orientalism.

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Sources & Examples: Robert Brown, Mr. Gladstone as I Knew Him, and Other Essays (Williams & Norgate, 1902); Edmond de Pressensé, The Ancient World and Christianity (A. C. Armstrong & Son, 1898); William B. Greene, The Blazing Star (A. Williams & Co., 1872); Lawrence H. Mills, Zarathustrain Gâthas in Metre and Rhythm, 2nd ed.  (Open Court, 1903).

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Ashkenazi Zionist Orientalism. See Zionist Orientalism.

 

Asian Orientalism

 

Scholars use this term usually in one of two distinct ways.  First, some use it simply to refer synonymously to ideological Orientalism as described by Edward W. Said in his book, Orientalism (1978)—that is, Saidian Orientalism.  A. Czajka (2005), for example, uses this term to distinguish Said’s notion of Orientalism, which deals only with Asia, from the application of that notion to Western ideological constructions of Africa, finding that “African Orientalism” is similar to but also differs from Said’s “Asian Orientalism”.  A very few scholars, notably David H. Kim (2007), use the term anti-Asian Orientalism in this same way, that is as a synonym for Saidian Orientalism.  Second, other scholars follow Inoue Tatsuo (1999), who uses this term to describe a movement among modern Asian political and cultural leaders that challenges liberal democratic values of individual human rights and political freedom, considering them to be essentially incompatible with “traditional” Asian cultural values, which supposedly emphasize community and spirituality.  These Asian Orientalists claim that liberal democratic thinking is dangerous because it leads to crass materialism, decadence, and crime-infested societies such as those of the West.  Scholars consider this “Asian Orientalism” to be a form of ideological Orientalism because it imagines and constructs Asian cultures themselves as having an essential, timeless nature that is superior to the West and, at the same time, also treats “the West” as having an essentially inferior identity in comparison to Asia.  It is thus not only a form of self-Orientalism but also of Occidentalism.  All of this, furthermore, has little or nothing to do with actual Asian values, which is typical when it comes to Orientalist stereotypes.  [9/19]

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See also: Ideological Orientalism, Occidentalism, Oriental Orientalism, Saidian Orientalism, Self-Orientalism.

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Sources & Examples: First Usage: Awni Alkarzon, "The Influence of Faculty Exchange Programs on Faculty Members' Professional Development." Research in Higher Education Journal 30 (2016); A. Czajka, "The African Orient: Edward Said’s Orientalism and ‘Western’ Constructions of Africa." The Discourse of Sociological Practice 7 (2005); David H. Kim, “What is Asian American Philosophy?” In Philosophy in Multiple Voices (Rowman & Littlefield, 2007); Lionel Obadia, “The Internationalisation and Hybridization of Medicines in Perspective? Some Reflections and Comparisons between East and West,” 2009. At transtext(es) transcultures (https://journals.openedition.org/transtexts/), accessed 9/19; Malini J. Schueller, US Orientalisms: Race, Nation, and Gender in Literature, 1790-1890 (U. of Michigan, 2001).  Second Usage: Joanne Bauer, “The Challenges to International Human Rights.” In Constructing Human Rights in the Age of Globalization (M. E. Sharpe, 2003); Mohd A. M. Sani, “Mahathir Mohamad as a Cultural Relativist: Mahathirism on Human Rights,” 2008. At Research Gate (www.researchgate.net), accessed 8/19; Inoue Tatsuo, "Liberal Democracy and Asian Orientalism." In The East Asian Challenge for Human Rights (Cambridge, 1999); Aki Toyoyama,, “Asian Orientalism: Perceptions of Buddhist Heritage in Japan.” In Routledge Handbook of Heritage in Asia (Routledge, 2012).

 

Asiatic Orientalism

 

Scholars and art critics use this somewhat obscure and infrequently used term in three different ways.  First, scholars of earlier generations going back to the 19th century used it to describe their perception that “Asiatic peoples” were backward and inferior to the West.  Second, modern-day scholars use it to describe the Orientalist ideology of that earlier generation along the lines of Edward W. Said’s, Orientalism (1978).  Third, art critics continue to use this term to describe an aesthetic style in music and the visual arts including the cinema, which is considered to be voluptuous, languorous, and dreamy. [4/17]

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See also: Cinematic Orientalism, Classical Orientalism, Historical Orientalism, Ideological Orientalism, Musical Orientalism, Saidian Orientalism.

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Sources & Examples: James A. Altena, “Sevitzky is a Brilliant Success…,” 2019. At Pristine Classical (www.pristineclassical.com), accessed 1/21; Paul Cloke, “(En)culturing Political Economy: A Life in the Day of a ‘Rural Geographer’.” In Writing the Rural: Five Cultural Geographies (Paul Chapman Publishing, 1994); Hsuan L.Hsu,  “Nineteenth-Century Orientalisms.”  In The Routledge Companion to Asian American and Pacific Islander Literature (Routledge, 2016); Brigitte Kahl, “Galatians and the ‘Orientalism’ of Justification by Faith: Paul among Jews and Muslims.” In The Colonized Apostle: Paul through Postcolonial Eyes (Fortress Press, 2011); Elizabeth Kertesz, “Season Opening Gala (Melbourne Symphony Orchestra),” 2019. At ABR (www.australianbookreview.com.au), accessed 1/21; Sidney Low, Egypt in Transition ( Macmillan Company, 1914); Slobodan G. Markovich, British Perceptions of Serbia and the Balkans 1903-1906 (Dialogue Association, 2000); John Needham, The Grand Titration: Science and Society in East and West (George Allen & Unwin, 1969); Daniel S. Roberts, “’Mix(ing) a Little with Alien Nature’s’: Biblical Orientalism in De Quincey.” In Thomas De Quincey and Critical Directions (Routledge, 2008); Vimal Waidyasekera, “Asia's Legendary Film-maker,” n.d. At Artscope (https://archives.dailynews.lk/2006/11/22/main_Art.asp), accessed 1/21.

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Athenian Orientalism. See Greek Orientalism (Ancient).

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Australian Orientalism

 

Scholars use this term for the most part to describe white Australia's adaptation of ideological Orientalism and Saidian Orientalism to its particular situation as originally (1) a colonial, immigrant "settler society," (2) located on the rim of Asia, (3) far distant from the British homeland, (4) which forcibly occupied an already inhabited continent, and then (5) received large numbers of Asian immigrants. The Asian (Oriental) Other was thus much more immediate to Australians than to those "at home" in Britain. These characteristics, according to scholars, have influenced the shape and development of Orientalism in Australia down to the present so that it tends to be focused first and foremost on East and Southeast Asians, particularly the Chinese. It tends to display a greater degree of anxiety about Oriental Others and less interest in their supposedly exotic nature than was true in Britain. This anxiety is born partly of being closer to Asia and partly for having been "colonials" who themselves were looked down on by Britain (and displaced that experience onto Others). While Asians generally, including Muslims and Arabs, have been the focus of Australian Orientalism, the place of the Aboriginal peoples has been more problematic. Although they are subjected to racial prejudice and stereotyping, the Aborigines have not been seen as being "Oriental" or linked to Asia. Thus, scholars for the most part do not use the language of Orientalism with Aborigines, while the idea of Aboriginal Orientalism is also not usually seen as applying to Australia. Beyond these particular characteristics of Australian Orientalism, it is understood that various expressions of European and British Orientalisms are also found in Australia, including the arts and literature where there are "Australian Orientalist" painters and writers just as there are elsewhere in the West.

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See also: Aboriginal Orientalism, European Orientalism, Ideological Orientalism, Saidian Orientalism, Traditional Orientalism, Western Orientalism, White Orientalism.

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Sources & Examples: Shahram Akbarzadeh & Bianca Smith, “The Representation of Islam and Muslims in the Media (The Age and Herald Sun Newspapers).” Sociology Compass 1 (2007); Charles Ferrall, “An Introduction to Australasian Orientalism.” In East by South: China in the Australasian Imagination (Victoria U., 2005); Stathis Gauntlett, “Πώς άσωμεν επί γης αλλοτρίας; Greek Song and Identity ‘Down-under’,” Hellenic Studies/Études Helléniques 7 (1999); Helen Gilbert & Jacqueline Lo, Performance and Cosmopolitics: Cross-Cultural Transactions in Australasia (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009); Lars Jensen, Unsettling Australia: Readings in Australian Cultural History (Atlantic, 2005); Suvendrini Perera, “Representation Wars: Malaysia, Embassy, and Australia’s Corps Diplomatique.” In Australian Cultural Studies: A Reader (U. of Illinois, 1993).

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Authentic Orientalism

 

This term, which is neither rare nor frequently used, is not in the strictest sense a technical term—the word, "authentic," meaning simply "genuine" or "really real". That being said, users of this term, including scholars, use it to describe very different things, depending on what they mean by "Orientalism" and what they consider to be "authentically" Oriental. Some merchandisers use it to advertise products that they present as being "really" Asian. In music and the opera, some critics use it to describe works and their production for audiences in which the composer is supposed to have taken some trouble to use genuine elements of "Oriental" culture, sometimes apparently being the actual Asia but sometimes seeming to allude to what is only stereotypically supposed to be Oriental. Still others use this term in a pejorative and even sarcastic way to criticize something that purports to be ("wink, wink, nod, nod") "authentically Oriental". In general, then, this term is usually used in two broad ways. First, at times it is used to describe that which is thought to be genuinely Asian. Second, at other times, it is used to describe that which claims to be (genuinely) Oriental, treating the so-called "Orient" as really and actually having a single essential, timeless, and exotic nature. [10/18]

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See also: Commercial Orientalism, False Orientalism, Genuine Orientalism, Ideological Orientalism, Musical Orientalism, Saidian Orientalism.

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Sources & Examples: Garland H. Cannon, “Orientalism and Sir William Jones.” Michigan Alumnus Quarterly Review 62 (1955); Adrienne L. Childs,   “Tanner and ‘Oriental’ Africa.” In Henry Ossawa Tanner: Modern Spirit (U. of California, 2012); Jacob S. Dorman, “Ever the Twain Shall Meet: Orientalism and American Studies.” American Quarterly 67 (2015); Daniel Goode, “Authentic Orientalism—Tan Dun,” 2007. At Daniel Goode (danielgoode.com), accessed 10/18; Onlybydubai,  “Slumdog Millionaire: A Discourse Analysis Showcasing the Iinterchangeable Effects of Orientalism, Globalization & Universal Beliefs within Film,” 2015. At OnlybyDubai (https://onlybydubai.wordpress.com), accessed 10/18; Esther Zandberg, “The City Engineer’s Challenge,” 2005. At Haaretz (https://www.haaretz.com), accessed 10/18.

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Auto-Orientalism. See Self-Orientalism.

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Avant-garde Orientalism

 

Scholars generally use this term to describe the ways in which avant-garde artists and designers, including clothing designers, imagine and construct "Orientals" through their art. Scholars note that the avant-garde artistic movement, which began in the 1850s, is a large, complex field involving many branches including, for example, surrealism, cubism, and futurism. Avant-garde artists thus employ Orientalist themes in a wide range of ways that often challenge or reframe Orientalist stereotypes in various, sometimes radical, ways while avant-garde artists virtually exemplifying ideological Orientalist stereotypes even if their work challenges artistic conventions in other ways. Pablo Picasso's painting, Les Demoiselles d'Avigonon (1907) is considered an example of a more radical reframing of Orientalist categories. Although not rare, this term is not frequently used, and David LeHardy Sweet's recent book, Avant-garde Orientalism: The Eastern 'Other' in Twentieth-Century Travel Narrative and Poetry (2017) is the key work on this subject.

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See also: Aesthetic Orientalism, Ideological Orientalism, Pictorial Orientalism, Visual Orientalism.

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Sources & Examples: Elizabeth G. Kirk, “Neo-Orientalism: Ugly Women and the Parisian Avant-garde, 1905-1908” (M.A. thesis, British Columbia, 1988); Jane A. Sharp, Russian Modernism Between East and West - Natal’ia Goncharova and the Moscow Avant-garde (Cambridge, 2006); David LeHardy Sweet, “Lecture: Avant-garde Orientalism, An Introduction,” 2017.  At Linkedin (https://www.linkedin.com).  Accessed 7/16.

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