Note:  in the text of each entry, users will find terms for Orientalisms sometimes highlighted in bold and sometimes highlighted in italics.  Bold Orientalisms (e.g. Aboriginal Orientalism) refer to main entries in this glossary.  Italicized Orientalisms (e.g. Afro Orientalism) do not have their own entry but are referred to in an another entry, which is indicated by a "See" entry (e.g. Afro Orientalism. See Black Orientalism).

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Occidentalism

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Although the academic use of this term goes back into the 19th century, it was only in the 1990s that scholars began to use it to describe an ideological phenomenon modeled on Saidian Orientalism. In simplest terms, Occidentalists are those who imagine and construct the “Occident” (however defined) as having an essential, largely unchanging nature, which scholars can determine. Originally, Occidentalists, who were themselves usually Westerners, used this term to imagine and construct the West as more civilized and industrious than the Orient and as having greater vitality and wisdom (among other things). Today, scholars use this term in two broad ways.  First, some use it in the tradition of the original meaning of the term to describe Western ideological Occidentalisms, which assert the superiority of the West. Scholars note that Western Orientalists are also necessarily “Occidentalists” in that the ways they imagine and construct the East as inferior inherently reflect and shape their own Occidental self-understanding as being essentially superior to the Orient.  Second, many other scholars use this term to describe the ways in which Asians (and other non-Westerners) imagine and construct the West as being essentially inferior to them. Westerners are thus imagined and constructed to be, for example, greedy materialists, imperialists, superficial intellectually, violent, arrogant, and so forth. Although there is evidence of Asian Occidentalisms in ancient times, modern-day ones have often emerged as reactions against Western colonialism and imperialism. In this sense, Occidentalism is taken to be the ideological and even Western-like Asian counterpart to Western Orientalism and an inversion of it; and scholars frequently link the use of this term to the influence of Edward W. Said and his groundbreaking work, Orientalism (1978). At other times, however, Asian Occidentalists imagine the West as being more modern than Asia and, in fact, agree that in various ways the West is superior. Some scholars also observe that Asian Occidentalisms do differ ideologically from the scholarly understanding of Orientalism in that they tend to be more defensive and less aimed at domination of an Other; and they tend to be focused internally on domestic national concerns, such as responding to the global economic system. And just as Western Orientalisms reflect and influence Western self-understanding, so do Asian Occidentalisms reflect and influence the ways Asians see themselves. The scholarly study of Occidentalisms can, in sum, be understood as a spin-off from the study of Orientalism and, in that sense, another way to understand the impact of Western ideologies on Asia and the role of Asians in modernization. Some scholars see the study of Occidentalism as a corrective to the over-emphasis on the role of the West in the study of Orientalism. This term is quite frequently used in some scholarly circles today and, like the notion of Orientalism, has spawned its own vocabulary of sub-terms, such as, for example, academic Occidentalism, political Occidentalism, and self-Occidentalism.  [9/18]

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See also: Asian Orientalism, Binary Orientalism, Cooperative Orientalism, Dissident Orientalism, Ideological Orientalism, Nationalist Orientalism, Negative Orientalism, Orientalism in Reverse, Positive Orientalism, Reflexive Orientalism, Reverse Orientalism, Saidian Orientalism.

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Sources & Examples: Meltem Ahiska, “Occidentalism: The Historical Fantasy of the Modern.” South Atlantic Quarterly 102 (2003); Ian Buruma & Avishai Margalit, Occidentalism: The West in the Eyes of Its Enemies (Penguin Books, 2006); James G. Carrier, "Occidentalism: the World Turned Upside Down." American Ethnologist 19 (1992); Xiaomei Chen, Occidentalism: A Theory of Counter-Discourse in Post-Mao China (Oxford, 1995); Jukka Jouhki & Henna-Riikka Pennanen, “The Imagined West: Exploring Occidentalism.” Suomen Antroplogi 41 (2016); Diana Lary, “Edward Said: Orientalism and Occidentalism.” Journal of the Canadian Historical Association NS 17 (2006); Edward W. Said, Orientalism (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978); Couze Venn, Occidentalism: Modernity and Subjectivity (SAGE, 2000); Eric Fisher Wood, The Note Book of an Attaché: Seven Months in the War Zone (A. L. Burt Co., 1915).

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Occult Orientalism

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Scholars generally use this term and the closely related terms, esoteric Orientalism and Theosophical Orientalism, to describe the ways in which those involved in Western spiritualist-religious movements that originated in the 19th century imagine and construct the Orient (esp. India, Tibet, and Egypt) and Oriental religions (Hinduism and Buddhism) as being the source of mystical, spiritual, and timeless supernatural Truth. These Orientalisms are for the most part positive Orientalisms that both affirm at least some aspects of the Orient, usually religious and spiritual, but still treat the Orient stereotypically as having an essential nature absolutely distinct from the West. They are frequently identified with The Theosophical Society, founded in 1875, including especially one of its co-founders, Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831-1891); and they are also closely associated with 19th century Romanticism. Within Western esoteric, occult movements, however, some individuals and groups have rejected Oriental mysticism as being irrelevant to the West and, thus, to a degree hold more common ideological Orientalist views of the East as in some degree inferior.  [5/17]

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See also: Desert Orientalism, Ideological Orientalism, Magical Orientalism, Positive Orientalism, Romantic Orientalism, Zen Orientalism.

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Sources & Examples: Occult Orientalism: Mark Bevir, “The West Turns Eastward: Madame Blavatsy and the Transformation of the Occult Tradition.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 62 (1994); Rita Felski, The Gender of Modernity (Harvard, 2005); W. J. Hanegraaff, “The Globalization of Esotericism.” Correspondences 3 (2015); Tace Hedrick, “Neoliberalism and Orientalism in Puerto Rico: Walter Mercado’s A Queer Spiritual Capital.” Centro Journal 25 (2013); Nicolas Laos, Methexiology: Philosophical Theology and Theological Philosophy for the Deification of Humanity (Pickwick Publications, 2016); Suzanne Marchand, “German Orientalism and the Decline of the West.” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 145 (2001);  C. Partridge, “Orientalism and the Occult.” In The Occult World (Routledge, 2016). Esoteric Orientalism: William Grandi, “Children’s Stories in the Educational Theories of Ellen Key, Rudolf Steiner and Maria Montessori.” Ricerche di Pedagogia e Didattica 11 (2016); Jim Haritaworn, et al., “Poly/logue: A Critical Introduction to Polyamory.” Sexualities 9 (2006). Theosophical Orientalism: Karl Baier, “Theosophical Orientalism and the Structures of Intercultural Transfer: Annotations on the Appropriation of the Cakrasin Early Theosophy.” In Theosophical Appropriations: Esotericism, Kabbalah, and the Transformation of Traditions (Ben Sheva Ben-Gurion U. of the Negev, 2016); Mark Corrado, “Orientalism in Reverse: Henry Corbin, Iranian Philosophy, and the Critique of the West” (M.A. thesis, Simon Fraser U., 1999); Christopher Partridge, “Lost Horizon: H. P. Blavatsky and Theosophical Orientalism.” In Handbook of the Theosophical Current (Brill, 2013); Anita Stašulāne, “New Religious Movements in Latvia.” SOTER 32 (2009).

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Official Orientalism

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Scholars use this term usually in at least one of two ways.  First and more often, they use it in reference to the distinction Edward W. Said makes in his book, Orientalism (1978), between “official” as opposed to individual or personal Orientalisms where official Orientalism refers to the established, generally accepted, and influential body of scholarly institutions and scholarship deemed acceptable in the field of Oriental studies. Said contrasts this official Orientalism with personal Orientalisms, which are more idiosyncratic and not widely accepted in that community of scholars.  Second and less frequently, a few scholars use this term to connote government policies based on ideological Orientalist principles and ideas, such as the policies of a European colonial power in its administration of a colony. Use of this term does go back into the 19th and earlier 20th centuries—for example, in Marco Pallis’ translation of René Guénon's 1922 book, Introduction to the Study of the Hindu Doctrine (2001, originally published in French). Rarely, a scholar will use the term establishment Orientalism to refer to official Orientalism. Even more rarely, a scholar (e.g. Kirtsoglou, 2007) will use the term, unofficial Orientalism, to describe Orientalist stereotypes that are nation-wide or culture-wide but not acknowledged as being authoritatively established.  [7/18]

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

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Sources & Examples: Ali Behdad, Belated Travellers: Orientalism in the Age of Colonial Dissolution (Cork U., 1994); René Guénon, Introduction to the Study of the Hindu Doctrines (Sophia Perennis, 2001); Josephine Park, Apparitions of Asia: Modernist Form and Asian American Poetics (Oxford, 2008); Philippe M.F. Peycam, “Sketching an Institutional History of Academic Knowledge Production in Cambodia (1863-2009)--Part 2.” SOJOURN 26 (2011); Edward W. Said, Orientalism (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978); Percy E. F. W. Smythe & Emily A. Smythe, Original Letters and Papers of the Late Viscount Strangford upon Philological and Kindred Subjects (Trübner 1878).

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Old Orientalism

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Scholars use this term usally and almost always in passing to refer to traditional Orientalism, especially in its ideological Orientalism guise, in contrast to later developments in Orientalist thinking, most often termed new Orientalism or post-Orientalism. This term is also used to differentiate between the time when traditional Orientalism was a dominant school of thought and practice over against later eras when other intellectual currents other than Orientalism have become more dominant. Scholars also use the terms Old-fashioned Orientalism and Old School (Old-School) Orientalism to refer to the older versions of ideological Orientalism of the 19th and roughly first half of the 20th centuries.  Occasionally, “old Orientalism" is used more precisely to mean the Orientalism described by Edward W. Said in his book, Orientalism (1978)—i.e. Saidian Orientalism.

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See also: Classical Orientalism, Historical Orientalism, Ideological Orientalism, New Orientalism, Post-Orientalism, Traditional Orientalism, Saidian Orientalism.

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Sources & Examples: Old Orientalism: Douglas Little, “Three Arab Critiques of Orientalism.” In Orientalism: A Reader (New York U., 2000); Pavan K. Malreddy, Orientalism, Terrorism, Indigenism: South Asian Readings in Postcolonialism (SAGE, 2015); Masanori Oda, “Welcoming the Libido of the Technoids Who Haunt the Junkyard of the Techno-Orient, or the Uncanny Experience of the Post-Techno-Orientalism Moment.” In The Uncanny: Experiments in Cyborg Culture (Turnaround, 2002).  Old Fashioned Orientalism: Elizabeth D. Carney, “Olympias and Oliver: Sex, Sexual Stereotyping, and Women in Oliver Stone’s Alexander.” In Respones to Oliver Stone’s Alexander: Film, History, and Cultural Studies (Wisconsin, 2010); Robert S. Nelson, Hagia Sophia, 1850-1950: Holy Wisdom Modern Monument (Chicago, 2004); Hugh  Wilford, America’s Great Game: the CIA’s Secret Arabists and the Shaping of the Modern Middle East (Basic Books, 2013).  Old School Orientalism: Adam Geczy, Fashion and Orientalism: Dress, Textiles and Culture from the 17th to the 21st Century (Bloomsbury, 2013); Andrew Wilcox, Orientalism and Imperialism: From Nineteenth-Century Missionary Imaginings to the Contemporary Middle East (Bloomsbury Academic, 2018).

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Old-Fashioned Orientalism. See Old Orientalism.

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Old School (Old-School) Orientalism. See Old Orientalism.

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Old Testament Orientalism

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A few scholars use this very rarely used term to describe Milton and other English authors’ appropriation of biblical themes, ideas, and images found in the Old Testament to imagine and construct (describe) non-Christian, "heathen" peoples as the alien Other.

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See also: Ancient Orientalism, Biblical Orientalism, Christian Orientalism, Early Orientalism, Ideological Orientalism, Religious Orientalism, Renaissance Orientalism.

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Sources & Examples: Walter S. H. Lim, "John Milton, Orientalism, and the Empires of the East in Paradise Lost." In The English Renaissance, Orientalism, and the Idea of Asia (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010).

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Ontological Orientalism

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Sadik Jalal al-Azm first introduced this term in 1980, although Edward W. Said (1978) set the stage for its use particularly with his observation that “Orientalism is a style of thought based upon an ontological and epistemological distinction made between 'the Orient' and (most of the time) 'the Occident'.” (p. 2).  Al-Azm agrees and observes that Western Orientalist thinking is based on a fundamental, radical, ideological, and essential distinction between the East and West.  Conceptually, they are by their very natures absolutely different categories of being.  They differ, that is, ontologically.  Knowledge of the one does not lead to knowledge of the other, and the East can’t be known simply through a study of its history and other contingent factors because these factors do not reveal the essential, metaphysical nature of “Oriental” peoples and cultures.  Al-Azm, in fact, criticizes Said himself for seeming to treat the West as a single monolithic ontological reality that is essentially racist and irredeemably Orientalist.  He is also critical of an ideological current in the Arab World, which sees the West as being essentially different from Asia, which al-Azm considers to be a form of reverse Orientalism (i.e. Asians think and behave like Western Orientalists).  Kipling’s poetic assertion, in sum, that “East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet” (“The Ballad of East and West,” 1889) captures the sense of ontological Orientalism in its conceptual treatment of Asia and the West as absolutely different categories of being.  This term is fairly frequently used, usually in reference to al-Azm’s arguments.   [revised 6/19]

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See also: Ideological Orientalism, Nationalist Orientalism, Orientalism in Reverse, Orientalist Epistemology, Reverse Orientalism.

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Sources & Examples: Syed Farid Alatas, "Indigenization: features and problems." In Asian Anthropology (Routledge, 2004); Hazim Ali, "Mythrophrenia: Constructions of Modernity in Contemporary Arab Discourse" (Honors thesis, Georgetown, 2016); Sadik Jalal al-Azm, "Orientalism and Orientalism in Reverse." In Orientalism: A Reader (Edinburgh, 2000); Elhadj Ould Brahim, “Arab Revolutions: Orientalism Reconsidered!” At Al Jazeera Centre for Studies (http://studies.aljazeera.net/en), accessed 6/19; Daurius Figueira, Exiting a Racist Worldview: A Journey Through Foucault, Said and Marx to Liberation (iUniverse, 2004); Edward W. Said, Orientalism (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978); Hsu-Ming Teo, ‘Orientalism: An Overview.’ Australian Humanities Review 54 (2013); Renee Worringer, Ottomans Imagining Japan: East, Middle East, and Non-Western Modernity at the Turn of the Twentieth Century (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).

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Operatic Orientalism

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Scholars use this term normally to describe the ways in which Western operas function as ideological Orientalist discourses that represent the Oriental Other as exotic and mysterious. At times the Other is imagined and presented as dangerous and male while, at other times, Orientals are constructed as feminine and highly sexualized.

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See also: Aesthetic Orientalism, False Orientalism, Fashion Orientalism, Musical Orientalism, Sexual Orientalism, Theatrical Orientalism.

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Sources & Examples: Lale B. Balkiş, “Defining the Turk: Construction of Meaning in Operatic Orientalism.” International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music 41 (2010); Herbert Lindenberger, Opera in History: From Monteverdi to Cage (Stanford, 1998); W. Anthony Sheppard, “Puccini and the Music Boxes.” Journal of the Royal Musical Association 140 (2015).

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Ordinary Orientalism. See Conventional Orientalism.

Oriental Craze. See Oriental Fad.

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Oriental Enthusiasm

This term and the term Orientalist Enthusiasm are very closely associated and differ primarily as to the period in which they are used.  “Oriental enthusiasm” is the traditional usage dating from at least the early 19th century and is still occasionally used down to the present.  “Orientalist Enthusiasm” is the term that is far more frequently used today.  Scholars continue to use both to describe the emotional state of people of European descent who show an intense, excited interest in the “the Orient”.  Both of these terms appear fairly frequently in the scholarly literature on Orientalism. In the 19th century and earlier 20th century, scholars and others most often used “Oriental enthusiasm” in their studies of ancient philosophy and religion, usually of the Roman era.  Platonists and Neo-Platonists, for example, were said to exhibit this enthusiasm for the East, as was the Christian theologian, Jerome.  Some scholars and other writers wrote approvingly of these Oriental enthusiasts and articulated a deep appreciation for the East, while other scholars, including Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) and Georg Hegel (1770-1831), disapproved of Orientalist enthusiasm as being irrational, ignorant, and an impediment to critical thinking.  Christian theologians particularly used the notion of Oriental enthusiasm to describe a constitutive element in or a danger to early Christianity. By the 1920s, however, scholars began to use Oriental enthusiasm to describe the motivating factor behind the Oriental fads of their own day when “things Oriental” were frequently the rage.  These fads and crazes usually had an important commercial impact through the sale of supposedly Oriental goods as well as through entertainment, popular literature, fashions, and the arts.  In light of the work of Edward W. Said, scholars today prefer the term, “Orientalist enthusiasm,” which reflects their sense that previous generations of scholars and others used the older notion of Oriental enthusiasm to express their own sets of ideological stereotypes, by which they imagined Orientals to have an essential, largely uniform, and unchanging identity.  Modern-day scholars, thus, use "Orientalist enthusiasm" to describe an element in the ideological Orientalism and academic Orientalism of those earlier generations.  They also continue to use it to describe the commercial and popular significance of Oriental fads and crazes, and they often see a link between Oriental enthusiasm and Romanticism.  Very rarely scholars have used the term “Oriental enthusiasm” to describe an enthusiasm Orientals themselves had for something.  It should be noted that scholars also use phrases such as “enthusiasm for the Orient,” “passion for the Orient,” or “love of the Orient” to refer to the notion of Orientalist enthusiasm—Edward Said (1978) himself being a notable example. [9/20]

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See also: Aesthetic Academic Orientalism, Aesthetic Orientalism, Amateur Orientalism, Architectural Orientalism, Cinematic Orientalism, Classical Orientalism, Commercial Orientalism, Egyptomania, Fashion Orientalism, French Orientalism, Ideological Orientalism, Literary Orientalism, Oriental Fad, Oriental Look, Orientalist Fad, Popular Orientalism, Positive Orientalism, Romantic Orientalism, Saidian Orientalism.

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Sources & Examples: Oriental Enthusiasm: Traditional Usage: James Emerson, “Letters from the Aegean.” Oriental Herald and Colonial Review 20 (1829); C. W. Humphries, “Marriage Between Near of Kin.” Southern Presbyterian Review 35 (1884); “Neo-Platonists.” Chamber’s Encyclopaedia, rev. ed., v. 5 (Collier, 1887); Donald W. Riddle, “Environment as a Factor in the Achievement of Self-consciousness in Early Christianity.” Journal of Religion 7 (1927); Mark Van Doren, Henry David Thoreau: A Critical Study (Houghton MIfflin, 1916); Klaus Vieweg, “The Taint of Determinateness: The East and Buddhism from the Perspective of Hegel.” In West-Eastern Mirror: Virtue and Morality in the Chinese-German Dialogue (Schoeningh Ferdinand, 2019); Henry Weber, Tales of the East, v. 1 (Edinburgh, 1812).  Modern-day Usage: J. J. Clarke, Oriental Enlightenment: The Encounter Between Asian and Western Thought (Routledge, 1997); Humberto Garcia, "In the Name of the 'Incestuous Mother': Islam and Excremental Protestantism in De Quincey’s Infidel Book." Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies 7 (2007); James Laver, Taste and Fashion - From the French Revolution to the Present Day (Read Books, 2013); John W. Oliver, The Life of William Beckford (Norwood Editions, 1977).  Orientalist Enthusiasm: J. J. Clarke, The Tao of the West: Western Transformation of Taoist Thought (Routledge, 2000); Vasudha Dalmia, Poetics, Plays, and Performances: The Politics of Modern Indian Theatre (Oxford, 2010); Richard V. Francaviglia, Go East, Young Man: Imagining the American West as the Orient  (Utah State U.,
2011); Rubén Gallo, New Tendencies in Mexican Art (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004); Nicholas A. Germana, “The Colossal and Grotesque: The Aesthetics of German Orientalism in Kant and Hegel.” In Gendered Encounters between Germany and Asia: Transnational Perspectives Since 1800 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017); Barbara D. Metcalf, “Toward Islamic English? A Note on Transliteration.” In Making Muslim Space in North America and Europe (U. of California, 1996); M. V. Nadkarni, The Bhagavad-Gita for the Modern Reader: History, Interpretations and Philosophy (Routledge, 2017); Edward W. Said, “Raymond Schwab and the Romance of Ideas.” In The World, the Text, and the Critic (Harvard, 1983); Tanya Sermer, “The Battle for the Soul of Jerusalem: Musical Language, Public Performance, and Competing Discourses of the Israeli Nation-State” (Ph.D. diss., U. of Rochester, 2015).  “Enthusiasm for the Orient”: Rosit Chaudhuri, “Orientalist Themes and English Verse in Nineteenth-Century India” (D.Phil. diss., Trinity, 1995); Edward W. Said, Orientalism (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978); Hsu-Ming Teo, “American Popular Culture Through the Lens of Saidian and Post-Saidian Orientalist Critiques.” Critical Race & Whiteness Studies 10 (2014).

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Oriental Fad

This term is used here as an umbrella term for a larger family of terms that includes: Oriental Craze, Oriental Fad, Oriental Mania, Oriental Rage (2nd Usage), and Oriental Vogue.  This family is distinct from but closely related to another family, Orientalist Fad.  Online searches suggest that the terms “Oriental mania” and “Oriental rage” were in use as early as the 1830s, “Oriental craze” by the 1870s, “Oriental fad” by the 1890s, and “Oriental vogue” by World War I.  Scholars have continued to use them down to the present although the scholarly context has changed since the publication of Edward W. Said’s book, Orientalism, in 1978.  Previously, these terms were part of the larger scholarly and popular vocabulary of classical Orientalism, which imagined and stereotyped “Orientals” as having an essential, largely unchanging, and continent-wide single identity.  Since Said’s groundbreaking critique of that Orientalism, scholars today use these terms in the contexts of their own critical study of classical Orientalism.  Users should also consult the entry for “Orientalist Fad”.  In all cases, these terms are used to describe periods when various Western populations display an intense enthusiasm for “things Oriental,” usually for a relatively brief period of time, although particularly “Oriental vogues” may be last for fairly long periods of time.  These fads, crazes, mania, rages, or vogues are complex historical phenomena rooted in the much longer history of Western attraction to the exotic East that is also frequently accompanied by a contradictory sense of fear and revulsion.  In the 19th century, scholars used these terms to describe sudden increases in enthusiasm for Eastern religions and philosophies in the Roman Empire and were also seen to be present in early Christianity.  The terms themselves are largely synonymous and usually used pejoratively, suggesting that the periods of enthusiastic Western attraction to the Orient are superficial, unreasonable, unpredictable, obsessive, tawdry, and based on excessive emotion and herd behavior.  They are often associated with Romanticism and with other fads, such as for the Gothic or for Asian religions. Oriental fads, crazes, and the like are powered by Oriental enthusiasm, which is often styled by scholars as an “enthusiasm for the Orient” (see Said, 1978) or, alternatively a love or a passion for the Orient.

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Oriental fads, crazes, mania, rages, and vogues include nearly every aspect of Western cultural and social life: the arts, literature, religion, music, fashion, and especially consumer goods of all kinds from cigarettes to silk screens, scarves, furniture, wall hangings, and collectible knick-knacks.  Commercial goods (often produced in the West), in fact, comprise a major component of these Oriental crazes.  Going as far back as the 15th century, so frequent had they become by the 19th century that it seems that somewhere in Europe or North America there was a fad sweeping one population or another almost continuously, and such faddish periods continue to be a part of Western consumer society and culture down to the present.  Scholars describe ancient Oriental fads, for example the Roman era fad of Mithraism (see G. K. Chesterton, 1925).  The recurring Western male sexual fascination with the Orient has also repeatedly welled up as fads and crazes.   Almost any particular historical event can trigger a faddish outbreak, such as the publication of 1001 Nights (1717), Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt and Syria (1798-1801), the World’s Congress of Religions (1893), or even President Richard Nixon’s visit to China (1972).  Modern print and visual media (from the printing press, to the cinema, to YouTube) have been and remain important engines that drive these outbreaks of enthusiasm for the Orient. [9/20]

See also: Aesthetic Orientalism, Chinoiserie, Christian Orientalism, Cinematic Orientalism, Classical Orientalism, Consumer Orientalism, Egyptomania, False Orientalism, Fashion Orientalism, French Orientalism, Ideological Orientalism, Oriental Enthusiasm, Oriental Rage, Oriental Renassiance, Orientalist Fad, Orientalist Gaze, Pop Orientalism, Popular Orientalism, Romantic Orientalism, Saidian Orientalism.

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Sources & Examples: Oriental Fad: G. K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man (Hodder & Stoughton, 1925); W. F. Gallaway, Jr., “The Sentimentalism of Goldsmith.” PMLA 48 (1933); Olive F. Gunby, “Jade, the Lucky.” Current Literature: A Magazine of Contemporary Record 22 (1897); Lucile P. Harper, “Corresponding Methods and Ideas in Goldsmith’ The Traveller and The Citizen of the World" (M.A. thesis, Rice U., 1965); Charles C. Knipp, “Types of Orientalism in Eighteenth-century England” (Ph.D. diss., U. of California, Berkeley, 1974); John K. Mumford, Oriental Rugs, 3rd ed. (Scribner, 1905); John L. Myers, The Influence of Anthropology on the Course of Political Science (U. of California, 1916); Margaret A. Toth, “The Fad for the Orient: Early Twentieth-Century Trade Catalogues and U.S. Fiction,” 2017. At Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library (http://www.winterthur.org), accessed 8/20; Chiaki Yokoyama, “William Morris and the ‘Rustinian’ Crafts Revival.” The Geibun-Kenkyu 73 (1997). Oriental Craze: Ernest A. Baker, The Novel of Sentiment and the Gothic Romance (Barnes & Noble, 1929); Kerryn Goldsworthy, “Austen and Authenticity,” n,d, At Australian Humanities Review (http://australianhumanitiesreview.org), accessed 8/20; Amanda Huffer, “Female Immigration as a Catalyst for Ritual Practice: A Social History of Hinduism
in the United States.” Journal of Hindu Studies 3 (2010); Rajender Kaur & Anupama Arora, “India in the American Imaginary, 1780s–1880s.” Journal of Transnational American Studies 9 (2018); "The Oriental Craze.” Carpentry and Building: A Monthly Journal 3, 9 (Sept. 1881): 168. Oriental Mania: Maryam Farahani, “A Lady’s Transnational Journey Beyond the Veil…”, 2020. At Anthem Press Blog (www.anthempressblog.com), accessed 8/20; [Xaver Landerer], “Upon a Peculiar Oriental Locality for Honey.” Psyche 4 (January-March 1885); George Landow, "William Holman Hunt's 'Oriental Mania' and his Uffizi Self-Portrait." Art Bulletin 64 (1982); Anne R. Richards, “The World Parliament of Religions, the Swami, and the Evangelist: Contextualizing Late 19th- Century American Responses to Hinduism.” Journal of Global Initiatives 13 (2018); William B. Scott, Autobiographical Notes of the Life of William Bell Scott, v. 2 (Harper & Brothers, 1892); Charles E. Trevelyn, et. al., The Application of the Roman Alphabet to All the Oriental Languages (Serampore Press, 1834). Oriental Rage: Ferial J. Ghazoul, “Flaubert: From Dervish to Saint.” Féeries 2 (2005); Suzanne Marchand, “Philhellenism and the Furor Orientalis.” Modern Intellectual History 1 (2004); Review of “Fothergill, Brian. Beckford of Foothill. Fiber and Faber, 1979.” Choice 16 (1979); C. E. Trevalyn, “The Application of the Roman Alphabet to All the Oriental Languages: Contained in a Series of Papers.” In Select Papers on the Subject of Expressing the Languages of the East in the English Character (Serampore Press, 1834); Virginia L. Lee, “Feminine Modes and Mores of the Nineteenth Century” (M.A. thesis, U. of California, Berkeley, 1955).  Oriental Vogue: Stephen Gundle & Clino T. Castelli, The Glamour System (Palgrave Macmillan, 2006); Aykut Gürçağlar, “
Landscapes of Istanbul as An Imaginary Oriental City Through The Eyes of English Painters.” Ars & Humanitas 5.2 (2011); Klaus Martens, “Two Glimpses of the Baroness.” Canadian Review of Comparative Literature 29 (2002); Mark Singleton, “Suggestive Therapeutics: New Thought's Relationship to Modern Yoga.” Asian Medicine 3 (2007); Leona Wood, “Dance du Ventre: a Fresh Appraisal (Part I).” At Aisha Ali (www.aisha-ali.com); accessed 8/20. “Enthusiasm for the Orient”: Edward W. Said, Orientalism (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978).  And See: Herbert R. Swanson, "Faddish Orientalisms: A Study of Hidden Assumptions in the Study of Orientalism," 25 January 2021." At Orientalism Studies (www.orientalismstudies.com).

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Oriental Fiction

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The scholarly use of this very frequently and widely used term falls into two historical periods, divided by the publication of Edward W. Said’s Orientalism (1978).  First, from the early 19th century to the post-World War II era scholars of Oriental fiction used this term in the context of their descriptions of the literary genre also frequently termed Oriental tales and less frequently Oriental novels. Scholars in this era focused primarily on France and Britain and especially on the 18th century and on those works that either originated in Asia or were known to be “pseudo-Oriental,” that is works that presented themselves as Asian but were actually written by European authors. “Oriental fiction” in this sense meant tales supposed to have been written by Asians. Although these tales had been known to Europeans since roughly the 11th century, scholars marked the French translation of One Thousand and One Nights (Arabian Nights in Britain) by Antoine Galland (1646-1715), published beginning in 1704, as sparking the French and British infatuation with Oriental stories and giving rise to a large literature of translated tales, pseudo-Oriental imitations, novels, narrative poems, and stories published as books and in magazines. This genre collectively described an opulent, fabulous, mythical, fascinating, magical, glamorous, sensuous, and sometimes violent and dangerous Orient very much in keeping with the romantic spirit that permeated Oriental fiction. William Beckford’s novel, Vathek (1786), was considered to have been an important contribution to the genre and thought to be a more realistic portrayal of the Orient. In Britain, Richard Burton’s translation of the Arabian Nights (1884) is seen by scholars as being an influential example of Victorian Oriental fiction. Most scholars of Oriental fiction also argue that it had a large impact on the other arts, such as painting, especially in France and Britain. The term fictional Orientalism is a rarely used synonym for Oriental fiction.  Second, while scholars have continued to use this term since 1978, they do so largely in the context of Said’s notion of Orientalism, generally, and the concept of Orientalist fiction more particularly. Said himself treated the Oriental fiction of the 18th and 19th centuries as being stereotypical, ideological discourses that imagined and constructed Orientals, especially Muslims and Arabs, as having essential, unchanging natures that rendered them inferior to the West and justified and empowered European colonization and imperialism. Scholars do not agree on the degree to which this Saidian Orientalism can be applied to the Oriental fiction especially of the 18th and 19th centuries, but it remains true that Said fundamentally changed the direction, scope, and perspective with which they approach that issue. See the entry for “Orientalist Fiction,” below.  [11/18]

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See also: Aesthetic Orientalism, Byronic Orientalism, Fictional Orientalism, Ideological Orientalism, Literary Orientalism, Oriental Literature, Oriental Poetry, Orientalist Fiction, Popular Orientalism, Pulp Orientalism, Romantic Orientalism, Saidian Orientalism.

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Sources & Examples: Graham Anderson, Ancient Fiction: The Novel in the Graeco-Roman World (Routledge, 2014); Ros  Ballaster, “Narrative Transmigrations: The Oriental Tale and the Novel in Eighteenth-Century Britain.” In A Companion to the Eighteenth-Century English Novel and Culture (Blackwell, 2005); Martha P. Conant, The Oriental Tale in England in the Eighteenth Century (Columbia, 1908); John C. Dunlop, History of Prose Fiction, v. 2 (George Bell & Sons, 1888); Goran Gocić, Notes from the Underground: The Cinema of Emir Kusturica (Wallflower Press, 2001); Marion H. Howe, “Oriental Influence upon Eighteenth Century English Literature as Shown in Four Representative Works” (M.A. thesis, Boston, 1949); Ashok Malhotra, “Book-History Approaches to India: Representations of the Subcontinent in the Novel and Verse, 1780–1823.” History Compass 8 (2010); Behbood Mohammadzadeh, “Incorporating Multicultural Literature in English Language Teaching Curriculum.” Procedia 1 (2009); Geoffrey P. Nash, ed., Marmaduke Pickthall: Islam and the Modern World (Brill, 2017); Edward W. Said, Orientalism (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978); Shahzad A. Siddiquee, “The Oriental Content and Context in Byron’s Don Juan” (Ph.D. diss., Aligarh Muslim U., 2008); Bayard Tuckerman, A History of English Prose Fiction (G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1891).

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Oriental Formalism

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Nineteenth and earlier 20th century academic Orientalists and others used this term to describe their belief that "Orientals" are essentially bound to an aesthetic and literary style that lacks creativity, namely “formalism”.  These scholars used it especially to analyze what they imagined to be the differences between ancient Greek learning and art and that of the Persians and other nearby Asian peoples.  Where classical Greek learning and art was lucid and enlightened, that of the Persians was imagined to be hidebound, stiff, crudely ornate, backward, and done by rote.  It was marked by an adherence to form over content.  Some argued that this ancient “Asiatic school” of formalism was dominated by architecture, and others saw it as being still dominant in the Asia of their own time.  They equated it with what they supposed to be oppressive Asian despotism.  Some biblical scholars claimed that it was this Oriental formalism in the literary style of the Bible, especially the Old Testament, that made it difficult for latter-day readers to understand the Bible. Scholars of Orientalism today, with rare exceptions, do not use this term.  [6/19]

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See also: Academic Orientalism, Biblical Orientalism, Greek Orientalism (Ancient).

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Sources & Examples: William C. Bagley, Craftsmanship in Teaching (Macmillan Co., 1911); Ross Burns, Damascus: A History, 2,d ed. (Routledge, 2019); Reginald S. Poole, “On Greek Coins as Illustrating Greek Art.”  The Numismatic Chronicle and Journal of the Numismatic Society NS 4 (1864); James J. Walsh, The Thirteenth Greatest of Centuries (Catholic Summer School Press, 1907).

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Oriental Gaze. See Orientalist Gaze.

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Oriental Literature

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Until well into the 20th century, scholars widely and commonly used this term to describe a wide range of translated writings originating in the “Orient” as well as pseudo-Orientalist writings actually written by Europeans but generally supposed to have originated in Asia. This literature includes such things as fictional tales and stories, literary texts, wisdom literature, coins, religious texts, compilations of traditional learning, and inscriptions. William Jones (1746-1794) and the Asiatic Society of Bengal, which he founded in 1784, are widely credited with playing a key role in fostering the European discovery and study of Oriental literature. Since World War II, however, this term has largely fallen into disuse among scholars although occasionally and usually in passing a modern-day scholar does still use it. Scholarly attention has shifted instead to the representations of “the Orient” in Western Orientalist literature, also termed literary Orientalism. One exception to the decline in the use of this term is in certain quarters of medical science where researchers, Asian as well as Western, still refer to the body of ancient and “traditional” Asian medical works as “the Oriental literature” on a given medical subject.  [1/19]

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See also: Literary Orientalism, Medical Orientalism, Oriental Fiction, Oriental Poetry, Oriental Renaissance, Orientalist Literature, Philological Orientalism, Poetic Orientalism.

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Sources & Examples: Traditional Usage: Martha P. Conant, The Oriental Tale in England in the Eighteenth Century (Columbia, 1908); John McClintock & James Strong, “Oriental Literature and Language,” [1880]. At McClintock and Strong Biblical Cyclopedia (www.biblicalcyclopedia.com), accessed 1/19; H. H. Wilson, The Present State of the Cultivation of Oriental Literature: A Lecture Delivered at a Meeting of The Royal Asiatic Society….  (John W. Parker & Son, 1852).  Modern Usage: Ivan D. Kalmar, Early Orientalism: Imagined Islam and the Notion of Sublime Power (Routledge, 2012); Joseph Lennon, Irish Orientalism: A Literary and Intellectual History (Syracuse, 2004).  Medical Research Usage: Z. H. Cho, et al., “New Findings of the Correlation between Acupoints and Corresponding Brain Cortices Using Functional MRI.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 95 (1998); Manish F. Varshney, et al., “Kimura Disease of Extremity: Unusual Manifestation in a Long Bone.” Joint Bone Spine 75 (2008).

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Oriental Look

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Scholars use this term to describe the ways in which Orientalists imagine and construct the physical appearance of Asians and things Asian to have an “Oriental” appearance— that is, to “look Oriental”. The definition of what precisely constitutes such a look depends on the context in which the term is used, but most broadly it almost always implies at least an appearance that is “exotic” and eye catching. In many instances, it can imply a sense of beauty. Beyond these characteristics, an Oriental look can be variously seen as strange, weird, intricate, colorful, opulent, or violent and threatening. When applied specifically to women’s appearances, it is usually sensuous, alluring, and most often sexual. Virtually anything can be said to have an Oriental look including, ceramics, decorative interiors, Russian peasants, a garden, apparel and accessories, buildings, fictional characters, movie stars, lighting, makeup, movies, ballets, Japan’s rising sun flag, and business cards—to name just a few things. The Oriental look is very often associated with personal physical appearance especially of the face. In cosmetics, it is recognized as one of a number of distinctive facial types, one characterized by a “pale, yellow” complexion, black hair color, and a “shallow” set of the eyes. Plastic surgeons can alter facial features so that they “look more Oriental.” In popular literature and elsewhere, the set of the eyes is frequently cited as giving “a bit” or a “slight” Oriental look even to individuals (more often women) who are not Asian. The term “Oriental look” is also very much associated with women’s fashions. In all of this, the commercial aspects of the Oriental look are particularly important. Whether in interior design, architectural design, the visual arts, fashion, tourism, or the marketing of a wide variety of commodities, the Oriental look sells. Finally, some authors in the medical research literature refer to patients suffering certain facial diseases or disfigurements as having an “Oriental look.” (See the entry Oriental literature for this same medical use of the term, “Oriental”).

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Orientalism, since Edward W. Said (1978), is understood to be an ideological notion by which Orientalists imagine and construct (Oriental) Others to be essentially exotic and usually irredeemably inferior. In this context, scholars wrestle with the ideological nature of this term. Some argue that when someone or something is said to “look Oriental” that person or thing is inescapably placed in an ideological and racial box. Use of this term, that is, stereotypes Asians as all being essentially alike and exotic, even strange to the point of being “weird” in ways that can be either alluring or off-putting—or both at once. Some scholars of fashion Orientalism, however, argue that the wearing of “Oriental-style” clothing is not necessarily ideological because of an ongoing repetitive process by which fashion designs and styles are transformed in a sort of a dialogue with other fashion styles. Adam Geczy coined the term Transorientalism to name this process. Some scholars who study aesthetic Orientalisms, which by their very nature are about things that look Oriental, contend that there is a gray area in which it is not clear that a given artist or designer is perpetuating ideological stereotypes. Scholars use the term Orientalist look in ways that usually either assert or at least imply that whoever or whatever “looks Oriental” is the object of a stereotypical and invasive Orientalist gaze. It can be more difficult, however, to discern the precise ideological content of the term “Oriental look,” especially because commodities that have an Oriental look are often widely popular in the West in what appears to be a non-ideological way. Scholars, in sum, use the term “Oriental look” sometimes in a more neutral way and at other times in ways that clearly link it to negative, stereotypical ideologies.

The terms “Oriental look” and “Orientalist look” are part of a larger family of terms that scholars and others use to describe the ways in which Orientalists look (“gaze”) at Asians. This family includes such terms as Oriental(ist) Design, Oriental(ist) Image, Oriental(ist) Kitsch, Oriental(ist) Representation, Oriental(ist) Style, and Oriental(ist) Taste. The term, “Oriental look,” however, is something more than merely representative of this larger family; it seems to be the most frequently used in popular as well as scholarly literature and broadly encompasses the rest of these terms. [2/19]

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See also: Aesthetic Orientalism, Architectural Orientalism, Chinoiserie, Commercial Orientalism, Fashion Orientalism, Ideological Orientalism, Oriental Enthusiasm, Orientalist Gaze, Orientalist Tourism, Popular Orientalism, Racist Orientalism, Saidian Orientalism, Science Fiction Orientalism, Transorientalism, Virtual Orientalism, Visual Orientalism.

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Sources & Examples: Oriental Look: Rosallen Brown, Half a Heart (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2013); Davina Caddy, “Variations on the Dance of the Seven Veils.” Cambridge Opera Journal 17 (2005); Pradip Das, “Henry Irown and the Indo-Saracenic Movement Reconsidered: Exuberance, Imitation and Compromise,” n.d. At The Victorian Web (http://victorianweb), accessed 2/19; C. S. Friedman, “Is it Derogatory to Refer to Someone as “Oriental looking” or “Oriental?,” 2017. At Quora (https://www.quora.com), accessed 2/19; Yoo Jin Kwon & Min-Ja Kim, “Orientalism in Fashion.” Paideusis 5 (2011); Mica Nava, “The Cosmopolitanism of Commerce and the Allure of Difference: Selfridges, the Russian Ballet and the Tango 1911-14,” 2012. At ROAR (http://roar.uel.ac.uk), accessed 2/19; Stan Place & Bobbi Ray Madry, The Art and Science of Professional Makeup (Milady Publishing Co., 1989); Carla Rice, Becoming Women: The Embodied Self in Image Culture (U. of Toronto, 2014); J. L Watt, et al., “A Familial Pericentric Inversion of Chromosome 22 with a Recombinant Subject Illustrating a 'Pure' Partial Monosomy Syndrome.” Journal of Medical Genetics 22 (1985).  Orientalist Look: 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); Jane Nicholas, The Modern Girl: Feminine Modernities, the Body, and Commodities in the 1920s (U. of Toronto, 2015); Sandra Ponzanesi, “Beyond the Black Venus: Colonial Sexual Politics and Contemporary Visual Practices,” n.d. At researchgate.net (www.researchgate.net), accessed 2/19; Firuzan M. Sümertas, “Women and Power: Female Patrons of Architecture in 16th and 17th Century Istanbul.” Edinburgh Architecture Research 31 (2008).

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Oriental Mania. See Oriental Fad.

Oriental Novel. See Oriental Fiction.