Pictorial Orientalism

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This term is fairly frequently used. Scholars generally use it to describe a form of visual “Oriental” representation limited primarily to painting and photography (including postcards) which was popular in the 19th and early 20th centuries. This term is especially used to refer to Orientalist paintings, particularly those of a school of French painters that included artists such as Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863). Pictorial Orientalists imagined and represented “Orientals” as being essentially and identifiably exotic, colorful, and picturesque. Scholars especially emphasize the ways in which pictorial Orientalists represented Eastern women as being sexual, sensuous, and lewd; and it is generally understood that these Orientalists were complicit in European colonialism and gave expression to concerns for power as much as for aesthetics. This term is to be distinguished from the more general term, visual Orientalism, which refers to a broader range of visual media.  [6/17]

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See also: Aesthetic Orientalism, Avant-garde Orientalism, Exotic Orientalism, Fashion Orientalism, Ideological Orientalism, Orientalist Archive, Political Orientalism, Sexual Orientalism, Visual Orientalism.

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Sources & Examples: Ibrahim Alaoui, “A Selection of Tunsian Contemporary Artists at Gallery 3,14,” n.d. At Stimftelsen 3,14 (http://www.stiftelsen314.com), accessed 6/17; Inge E. Boer, “Introduction: Imaginative Geographies and the Discourse of Orientalism.” In After Orientalism: Critical Entanglements, Productive Looks (Rodopi, 2003); Catrin Gersdorf, The Poetics and Politics of the Desert: Landscape and the Construction of America (Rodopi, 2009); Jill L. Matus, Unstable Bodies: Victorian Representations of Sexuality and Maternity (Manchester U., 1995); Aimillia M. Ramli, “’Licentious Barbarians’: Representations of North African Muslims in Britain.” Intellectual Discourse 17 (2009); Brian Singleton, Oscar Asche, Orientalism, and British Musical Comedy (Praeger, 2004).

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Pictorialist Orientalism. See Pictorial Orientalism.

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Platonic Orientalism

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This term is attributed to John Walbridge, The Wisdom of the Mystic East (2001). Scholars normally use it to describe an ancient philosophical-religious tradition held to originate with Plato, which was revived in Europe in the 15th century and today is associated with Western esoteric and occultist literature. Scholars argue that Platonic Orientalists in Roman times and in Renaissance Europe imagined a primordial, pure wisdom that originates in the East (variously Egypt, Mesopotamia, and as far east as India) and defined themselves in terms of this imaginary Eastern Other. This wisdom is held to reveal the divine Mind and the path of personal salvation. Zlatko Plese’s notion of Platonist Orientalism is similar to Platonic Orientalism but focuses on a small number of Roman philosophers who held that the wisdom traditions of Plato and of the “barbarians” were compatible and shared a common source.

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See also: Ancient Orientalism, Philosophical Orientalism, Positive Orientalism, Renaissance Orientalism.

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Sources & Examples: Dylan M. Burns, Apocalypse of the Alien God: Platonism and the Exile of Sethian Gnosticism (U. of Pennsylvania, 2014); Wouter J. Hanegraaff, “Gnosis.” In The Cambridge Handbook of Western Mysticism and Esotericism (Cambridge, 2016); Wouter J. Hanegraaff, “The Pagan Who Came from the East: George Gemistos Plethon and Platonic Orientalism.” In Hermes in the Academy: Ten Years’ Study of Western Esotericism at the University of Amsterdam (Amsterdam U., 2009); Zlatko Plese, “Platonist Orientalism.” In Historical and Biographical Values of Plutarch’s Works: Studies Devoted to Professor Philip Stadter by the International Plutarch Society (Utah State, 2005); John Walbridge, The Wisdom of the Mystic East: Suhrawardi and Platonic Orientalism (State U. of New York, 2001).

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Platonist Orientalism. See Platonic Orientalism.

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Pleasure-Pier Orientalism. See Seaside Orientalism.

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Poetic Orientalism

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Scholars use this term usually in one of two ways.  First, they frequently use it and the terms Orientalist poetry and Orientalist poetics to describe the works of Western as well as some Asian poets that draw on Orientalist images and themes. Second, scholars far less frequently use this term to describe poetry that either originates or has been at some point believed to originate in Asia—that is Oriental poetry.  It is the first usage that we focus on here. The English-language scholarly literature concerning poetic Orientalism tends to focus primarily on 19th century British Romantic poets such as Lord Byron (1788-1824) and Robert Southey (1744-1843) among many others; and it credits the influence of Sir William Jones (1746-1794) as being a key figure in the discovery and increasing popularity of Orientalist poetry, which in turn is held to have been instrumental in the emergence of British Romanticism. Poetic Orientalism was an important element in the broader movement of literary Orientalism, and scholars sometimes treat it as one form of fictional Orientalism. Most of them see this genre of poetry as emerging in the 18th century with Sir Thomas Moore (1779-1852) being an influential early example. Poetic Orientalism has had an impact on other artistic fields, including especially music where it has provided lyrics for musical Orientalist songs. Orientalist poetry is widely seen as playing a major role in British poetry generally in the 19th century.  The English-language literature on poetic Orientalism has also, secondarily, given attention to American modernist poetic Orientalism, which is generally held to begin with Ezra Pound (1885-1972) and credits Gary Snyder (1930- ) as being its leading 20th century practitioner. The central issue that scholars debate concerning Orientalist poetry and poetics is the relation of poetic Orientalism to Edward W. Said’s notion of ideological Orientalism, that is Saidian Orientalism. While Said (1978) says little about Orientalist poetry directly, he does consider it to be simply another form of colonialist/imperialist discourse that historically participated in imagining and constructing “Orientals” as being essentially and irredeemably inferior. Scholars acknowledge that many Romantic era poets were Orientalists in this sense, sometimes naming Southey as an important example. Other scholars argue, however, that Said failed to engage with this poetry, which in fact is more complex than he allows and often uses Asian themes and images in positive ways. Moore and Byron are often cited as key examples of poets who more carefully studied Asian literature and culture, had a positive appreciation for them, and used “Oriental” poetics to reinvigorate Western poetry. Their imaginative representations of the Orient enriched British poetry generally in positive ways that at times challenged British colonialism and imperialism. Women’s Orientalist poetry, by the same token, provided a venue that allowed women to re-imagine their role in their own society. Other scholars make similar arguments for American modernist poetic Orientalism, which particularly emphasized Asian spirituality as a resource for American renewal.  [3/19]

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See also: Byronic Orientalism, Ideological Orientalism, Literary Orientalisms, Musical Orientalism, Oriental Literature, Orientalist Literature, Oriental Poetry, Positive Orientalism, Pre-Orientalism, Romantic Orientalism, Saidian Orientalism, Self-Orientalism.

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Sources & Examples: Poetic Orientalism: William E. Curtis, Children of the Sun (Inter-Ocean, 1883); Roger Pao, “Kubla Kahn and Orientalism,” 2005. At Asian-American Poetry and Other Artistic Meanderings (asianamericanpoetry.blogspot.com), accessed 4/16; Benedict S. Robinson, “England, the ‘Orient,’ and the Ocean.” In A Companion to British Literature, v. 2, Early Modern Literature, 1450-1660 (Wiley Blackwell, 2014); J. E. Terblanche, “Cummings’ ‘1(a’: Solitude, Solidarity, Wholeness,” [2002] At Grand Valley State University (faculty.gvsu.edu), accessed 4/16; Leonardo R. Tobar, “The Spanish Literary System in the Nineteenth Century.” In A Comparative History of Literatures in the Iberian Peninsula, v. 1 (John Benjamins, 2010).  Orientalist Poetry: Pyeaam Abbasi & Alireza Anushiravani, "Coleridge’s Colonial Interest in Abyssinian Christianity." k@ta 12, (2011); Rosinka Chaudhuri, “Orientalist Themes and English Verse in Nineteenth-century India” (Ph.D. Diss., Oxford, 1996); Adeline Johns-Putra, “Home and the Harem: Early Nineteenth-Century Orientalist Representations of Women by Women.” Nineteenth-Century Gender Studies 2 (2006); Valerie Kennedy, “Orientalism in the Victorian Era,” n.d. At Oxford Index (http://oxfordindex.oup.com), accessed 5/17; Christian Kloeckner & Sabine Sielke, “From “Drops – of India” to “Floors / Descending”: Orient and Orientalisms in US-American Poetry and Poetics.” In Orient and Orientalisms in US-American Poetry and Poetics (Peter Lang, 2009); Sarga Moussa, “Imaginary Hybridities: Geographic, Religious and Poetic Crossovers in Victor Hugo’s ‘Les Orientales’,” 2013. At HAL archives-ouvertes.fr (https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr), accessed 2/19; Andrew Rudd, "‘Oriental’ and ‘Orientalist’ Poetry: The Debate in Literary Criticism in the Romantic Period." Romanticism: The Journal of Romantic Culture and Criticism 13 (2007); J. E.Terblanche & F. F. Terblanche, “Ezra Pound’s Orientalist poetry, Natural Rootedness, and Lepidoptera.” Literator 23 (2002).  Orientalist Poetics: Emily A. Haddad, Orientalist Poetics: The Islamic East in Nineteenth-Century English and French Poetry (Routledge, 2002); Monirul Islam, “A Tale of Three Journeys: Orientalist Poetics/Politics of Landor’s Gebir.” Impressions: A Bi-Annual Refereed e-Journal of English Studies 11 (2017); Josephine Park, Apparitions of Asia: Modernist Form and Asian American Poetics (Oxford 2008).

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Political Orientalism

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Scholars use this term and its synonym Orientalist politics to describe one of the key aspects of the notion of ideological Orientalism, namely the ways in which ideological Orientalisms were used to justify European colonialism and continue to be used down to the present to justify Western imperialisms by holding that Orientals lack the capacity for just and effective self-governance and thus are supposedly a danger to the West. Orientals are, that is, imagined and constructed as being incapable of exercising true citizenship. In all of this, scholars use these two terms to encompass the usual set of Orientalist prejudices, which stereotype Orientals as being essentially and irredeemably inferior, irrational, exotic, backward, lacking in civilization, sensuous, and so forth. Scholars, more generally, apply them to many different “political” situations, such as especially cases of sexual politics, where Orientalist prejudices are used to gain and exercise power over others. They also point to the ways in which Orientalist politics employs the arts, literature, and other cultural forms to further Orientalist agendas. Thus, for example, Eugène Delacroix’s painting The Fanatics of Tangier (1837-1838) represents something of the supposedly chaotic, backward nature of Arab politics. Although scholars occasionally use both of these terms, especially “Orientalist politics,” to describe Asians more generally and even more rarely non-Asians, they most frequently use them in reference to the Arab-Muslim Middle East, which is not only seen to be politically incompetent and dangerous but also deemed to suffer under the political dominance of Islam. More generally, scholars also point out the significant impact the notion of political Orientalism has had on world history since the 19th century, as a factor in the redrawing of the world’s political maps. They also note that, as is usually the case with various forms of Orientalism, Asians themselves have often appropriated Orientalist categories to describe their own political systems as being essentially different from and often superior to those of the West.  [revised 2/18]

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See also: Administrative Orientalism, Aesthetic Orientalism, Gender Orientalism. Governmental Orientalism, Ideological Orientalism, Racial Orientalism, Republican Orientalism, Republican Orientalism, Sexual Orientalism, Turkish Orientalism.

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Sources & Examples: Political Orientalism: Fred Dallmayr, Dialogue Among Civilizations: Some Exemplary Voices (Palgrave Macmillan, 2002); Khalid El Farouj, “Edward Said & Orientalism,” 2000. At MURAL (http://mural.uv.es/kelfa/), accessed 2/18; Jack Harrington, “Orientalism, Political Subjectivity and the Birth of Citizenship Between 1780 and 1830.” In Citizenship After Orientalism: An Unfinished Project (Routledge, 2014); Engin F. Isin, “Citizenship after Orientalism: Ottoman Citizenship.“ In Citizenship in a Global World: European Questions and Turkish Experiences (Routledge, 2005); Valerie Kennedy, “Orientalism in the Victorian Era,” n.d. At Oxford Research Encyclopedias: Literature (http://literature.oxfordre.com), accessed 2/18; Federico Luisetti, “Nietzsche’s Orientalist Biopolitics”, 2010.  At BioPolítica (biopolitica.unsw.edu.au), accessed 4/16; Ian A. Morrison, “Orientalism and the Construction of the Apolitical Buddhist Subject.” In Routledge Handbook of Global Citizenship Studies (Routledge, 2014); Zaki Nahaboo, “Subverting Orientalism: Political Subjectivity in Edmund Burke’s India and Liberal Multiculturalism.” In Citizenship After Orientalism: An Unfinished Project (Routledge, 2014); Jennifer Rich, An Introduction to Critical Theory (Humanities-Ebooks, 2007); Zafer Şafak, “An Outlook on Postcolonialism Through the Ethos of Orientalism by Edward Said.”  Trakya Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi 16 (2014); John K. W. Tchen, New York before Chinatown: Orientalism and the Shaping of American Culture, 1776-1882 (Johns Hopkins, 1999).  Orientalist Politics: Debjani Ganguly, Caste, Colonialism and Counter-Modernity: Notes on a Postcolonial Hermeneutics of Caste (Routledge, 2005); Marta Kollárová, “Good or Bad Agents? Western Fascination with Women
 and the Construction of Female Objects during the ISIS/ISIL Crisis.” In Gendering War and Peace Reporting: Some Insights – Some Missing Links (Nordicom, 2016); Gordon White & Roger Goodman, “Welfare Orientalism and the Search for an East Asian Welfare Model.” In The East Asian Welfare Model: Welfare Orientalism and the State (Routledge, 1998); Jasmin Zine, "Anti-Islamophobia Education as Transformative Pedagogy: Reflections from the Educational Front Lines." American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 21 (2004).

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Pop Orientalism

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Scholars use this term and the very rarely used terms, “pop culture Orientalism” and “pop music Orientalism,” to describe a form of popular Orientalism, which is particularly associated with modern, media driven popular culture going as far back as the music of Tin Pan Alley in the late 19th and earlier 20th centuries.  It has also been identified with the Beat Orientalism of the New Age hippie culture especially with its interest in idealized Asian-like spiritualties.  Pop Orientalism more recently encompasses an international cultural movement in the mass entertainment industry (e.g. the cinema, video games, comic books, television, Broadway musicals) that also involves other cultural elements including art, literature, and fashion.  It is especially identified with a pseudo-Asian pop music.  Pop Orientalism in all these forms imagines and constructs Asia and Asians as having an essential, timeless “being,” which can be either negative or positive.  “Positively,” it represents something of a naïve, superficial glorification of a supposedly alluring, exotic, sensual, aesthetic, and wise Asia.  Pop Orientalism, however, more frequently draws on classical Orientalism’s negative Western racist and sexist stereotypes of “the Orient” and often treats Asian-ness as being comical.  Adelaide Haynes (2015), although she does not use this term as such, cites Katy Perry’s video clip “Dark Horse” as an over the top, almost mocking pop Orientalist construction of ancient Egypt that imagines it to be uncivilized, backward, but also exotically spiritual.  The pop Orientalist movement also draws on a number of Asian genres and styles (e.g. manga, anime) as well as popular Asian entertainers.  Since it is an international movement enabled by mass global consumerism and distributed through modern mass media, Asian young people are also influenced by pop Orientalist images of an essentially exotic Asia. Asian performers and genre, that is, play a role both in creating pop Orientalism and importing it into Asia.  Nikki J. Y. Lee (2014) cites the Korean pop singer, Rain (Jung Ji-hoon), as an example.  This term is not rare, but it is also not frequently used. [7/20]

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See also: Beat Orientalism, Cinematic Orientalism, Classical Orientalism, Comic Orientalism, Commercial Orientalism, Consumer Orientalism, Cultural Orientalism, Ideological Orientalism, Musical Orientalism, Oriental Fad, Orientalist Fad, Popular Orientalism, Positive Orientalism, Postmodern Orientalism, Pulp Orientalism, Reverse Orientalism, Saidian Orientalism, Techno-Orientalism..

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Sources & Examples: Pop Orientalism: Adelaide Haynes, “The Dark Side of Orientalism,” 2015. At A Worldly Addiction (https://aworldlyaddiction.com), accessed 7/20; Nikki J. Y. Lee, “Pop-orientalism and the Asian Star Body: Rain and the Transnational Hollywood Action Movie.” In East Asian Film Starts (Springer, 2014); Thanos Moutsopoulos, “Critique of Critique of Exotica,” 2001. At Mute (www.metamute.org), accessed 7/20; Maurizio Peleggi, “Refashioning Civilisation: Dress and Bodily Practice in Thai Nation Building.” In IIAS Newsleter 46 (2008); W. Anthony Sheppard, “Pop Orientalism—Tin Pan Alley to Taiwan Today,” 2014.  At YouTube (www.youtube.com), accessed 7/20.  Pop Culture Orientalism: Antoinette Burton, The Postcolonial Careers of Santha Rama Rau (Duke U., 2007); David Weir, “Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century American Orientalism.”  In Orientalism and Literature (Cambridge, 2019).  Pop Music Orientalism: Michael Bourdaghs, Sayonara Amerika, Sayonara Nippon: A Geopolitical Prehistory of J-Pop (Columbia U., 2012).

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Popular Orientalism

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Although Edward W. Said seems to have been the first scholar to use this term, he chose not to investigate popular Orientalisms in his groundbreaking book, Orientalism (1978), which has meant that scholars who study it often see their work as a corrective to and/or an expansion of Said’s more highbrow assessment of Western Orientalism.  They have used this term in two distinct ways depending on their definition of “popular”: first, some scholars understand “popular” to describe that which is widely accepted and valued across a culture or society irrespective of social class or cultural differences so that Orientalist ideologies are “popular” because they are found throughout a culture or society, highbrow as well as middle and lowbrow.  When used in this way, this term is largely synonymous with such other terms as classical Orientalism, ideological Orientalism, and traditional Orientalism.  Second, other scholars define “popular” more restrictively as referring to common, ordinary people and their more lowbrow (and, presumably, middlebrow) cultures.  The term pop Orientalism is closely associated with this second usage.  One of the problems this usage poses is the difficulty of defining what is common and ordinary and what is not.  A few, like Said himself, contrast popular Orientalism with academic Orientalism, but most scholars are less clear as to what separates popular Orientalisms from more elite forms of Orientalism.  In both usages, popular Orientalisms imagine “Orientals” as having a single, essential, and unchanging nature or “being” and more often construct them as being uncivilized, unprogressive, immoral, passive, emotional, sensual, and otherwise unsavory.  Not infrequently, however, popular Orientalisms frame Orientals in a more positive light as being wise, spiritual, artistic, and “exotic” in an alluring sense.  Scholars, thus, note that popular Orientalisms are often markedly ambivalent about things Oriental, finding them at once alluring and off-putting.  They also highlight the relationship of Orientalist ideologies to popular, mass communications and entertainment media, particularly the cinema but also such other media as video games, pulp publications, advertising, and “popular culture” in general.  Western public interest in Eastern spiritualties and the occult is also often mentioned as a form of popular Orientalism.  Scholars also link popular Orientalism to the rise of the consumer culture and the popularity of (supposedly) Oriental fashions, arts, crafts, and designs, meaning that for ideological Orientalisms to be “popular” they must be commercially and/or culturally highly visible and widely available. Scholars also note that because popular Orientalisms are popular they tend to be taken for granted as ordinary and thus aren’t recognized as growing out of ideologically grounded Orientalist stereotypes, which means that popular Orientalisms often manifest themselves more covertly as hidden Orientalisms.  This term is used relatively frequently in the scholarly literature on Orientalism, and very rarely it is also called “entertainment Orientalism”.  [revised 7/20]

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See also: Aesthetic Orientalism, American Orientalism, Art Deco Orientalism, Byronic Orientalism, Canadian Orientalism, Comic Orientalism, Comic Book Orientalism, Commercial Orientalism, Cultural Orientalism, Demotic Orientalism, Exotic Orientalism, Faddish Orientalism, Feminist Orientalism, Folk Orientalism, Implicit Orientalism, Latent Orientalism, Linguistic Orientalism, Local Orientalism, Material Orientalism, Mediated Orientalism, Military Orientalism, Mythic Orientalism, Neo-Orientalism, Oriental Enthusiasm, Oriental Fad, Oriental Fiction, Oriental Look, Orientalese, Orientalist Archive, Orientalist Common Sense, Orientalist Exotica, Orientalist Exoticism, Orientalist Fad, Orientalist Fantasy, Orientalist Imagination, Orientalist Myth, Overt Orientalism, Peripheral Orientalism, Pop Orientalism, Postmodern Orientalism, Pulp Orientalism, Seaside Orientalism, Sartorial Orientalism, Science Fiction Orientalism, Techno-Orientalism, Virtual Orientalism, Vernacular Orientalism, Vulgar Orientalism, Wacky Orientalism, Western Orientalism, Xenophobic Orientalism.

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Sources & Examples: Popular Orientalism: Mark Bevir, "The West Turns Eastward: Madame Blavatsky and the Transformation of the Occult Tradition." Journal of the American Academy of Religion 62 (1994); Mary Ann Doane, Femmes Fatale (Routledge, 2008); Christine Doran, “Popular Orientalism: Somerset Maugham in Mainland Southeast Asia.” Humanities 5 (2016); Tobias Hübinette, “Orientalism Past and Present
: An Introduction to a Postcolonial Critique.” Stockholm Journal of East Asian Studies 13 (2003); Robert Irwin, “A Thousand and One Nights at the Movies.” In New Perspectives on Arabian Nights (Routledge, 2005); Jukka Jouhki, Imagining the Other: Orientalism and Occidentalism in Tamil-European Relations in South India (U. of Jyväskylä, 2006); Pavan K. Malreddy, Orientalism, Terrorism, Indigenism: South Asian Readings in Postcolonialism (SAGE, 2013); Suzanne Marchand, “Orientalistik and Popular Orientalism in Fin de Siécle Germany.” In After One Hundred Years: The 1910 Exhibition ‘Meisterwerke Muhammedanischer Kunst’ Reconsidered (Brill, 2010); Bridget Orr, “Galland, Georgian Theatre, and the Creation of Popular Orientalism.”  In The Arabian Nights in Historical Context: Between East and West (Oxford, 2008); Jonas Otterbeck, “The Depiction of Islam in Sweden.” Muslim World 92 (2002); Edward W. Said, Orientalism (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978); Mina Shin, “Review Essay: New American Orientalism.”  Journal of Asian American Studies 9 (2006); Yasuko Suga, “’Artistic and Commercial’ Japan: Modernity, Authenticity and Japanese Leather Paper.”  In Buying for the Home: Shopping for the Domestic from the Seventeenth Century to the Present (Ashgate, 2008); Hsu-Ming Teo, “American Popular Culture Through the Lens of Saidian and Post-Saidian Orientalist Critiques.” Critical Race and Whiteness Studies 10 (2014); M. S. Veena & P. V. Ramanathan, “New Orientalism in Literature: A Critical Overview.” The Criterion 4 (2013); Mari Yoshihara, Embracing the East: White Women and American Orientalism (Oxford, 2003).  Entertainment Orientalism: Jessica Bomarito, Nineteenth Century Literature Criticism (Cengage Gale, 2005).

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Positive Orientalism

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Scholars of Orientalism use this term usually to describe forms of ideological Orientalism that are the opposite of Edward W. Said’s description of negative Orientalism in his book, Orientalism (1978).  Said there portrays Western Orientalism as being an ideology that stereotypes Asians as being essentially inferior to the West.  In negative Orientalism, the (Western) Self denigrates the (Oriental) Other.  Positive Orientalism is the opposite: the Western Self respects, admires, and values the Oriental Other.  Scholars of positive Orientalism thus often contend that Said’s analysis is one-sided and almost entirely overlooks the fact that historically people in the West have often admired the Orient.  They point to, for example: (1) 19th century American Transcendentalism’s admiration for ancient Indian spirituality and philosophy; (2) 19th and earlier 20th century German scholarly and popular admiration for the ancient Aryan race; and (3) the post-World War II admiration in the West for East and Southeast Asian economic success.  More largely, scholars, argue that European and American Romanticism has often evinced a positive attitude toward things Oriental; and Western artists, critics, and scholars often have a high regard for what they take to be the aesthetics and the beauty of Asia. In general, then, positive Orientalisms to varying degrees display admiration for Oriental religions, cultures, philosophies, learning, and arts.  They respect the East, seek to be open to its influences, and at times see in it a model for the West itself.  They find the East exciting, fascinating, and many Westerners believe that Asian religions are highly spiritual and teach harmony and well-being.  Students of aesthetic Orientalism at times argue that the Western engagement with Asian arts can be creative, exciting, and enrich the West in many ways.  Some scholars have concluded in the face of all of this that positive Orientalism represents a significant alternative Orientalism to negative Saidian Orientalism.

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Scholars have increasingly, however, become aware of the fact that the notion of positive Orientalism is more complicated than the simple equation that negative Orientalists denigrate Asia while positive Orientalists admire it.  The key point is that positive Orientalisms are still Orientalisms—that is, they still imagine and construct “the Orient” as having an essential, timeless identity, which has little to do with actual Asian realities.  Thus, for example, Western scholars and others imagine that Asian Buddhism is essentially a meditative religion that teaches wisdom, harmony, and tranquility—a fanciful recreation of Buddhism that is ignorant of the many different ways real-life Buddhists actually practice their religion.  Positive Orientalists, that is, still engage in stereotyping Asians as “Orientals” by seeing in them what they want to see and ignoring what they do not want to see.  They still act as if they themselves are the ones who decide what Orientals “are really like” and in a real sense consume them as a kind of commodity to the extent that some scholars have noted that the Asian tourist industry represents an important and lucrative form of positive Orientalism.  It trades on the fact that Western tourists imagine Asia to be exotic, fascinating, and alluring.  Furthermore, scholars also note that positive Orientalism has an almost yin-and-yang relationship with negative Orientalism in that: First, positive Orientalists often see only certain aspects of the Orient as being positive while Asians overall continue to be seen as ignorant, backward, passive, and so forth.  Second, as indicated above, positive Orientalists still stereotype Asians as Orientals, an inherently negative treatment of them even if the stereotypes appear to be positive.  Third, positive Orientalisms by their very nature imply deficiencies in the West.  Asians are seen, for example, as being highly spiritual in light of a Western lack of spirituality.  East Asia is admired for its economic prowess in light of a less dynamic Western economy.  Scholars thus contend that positive Orientalisms are also negative Occidentalisms.  It should be noted, finally, that use of this term dates back at least to the early 20th century when a "positive Orientalism" was a sense that some aesthetic quality—architecture of San Francisco’s Chinatown, for example—communicates a good (positive) feeling or sense of the exotic Orient. [revised 6/19]

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See also: Aesthetic Orientalism, Affirmative Orientalism, Bloomsbury Orientalism, Celticism, Commercial Orientalism, Comparative Orientalism, Comparativist Orientalism, Cosmopolitan Orientalism, Counter-Orientalism, Dissident Orientalism, Flexible Orientalism, Good & Bad Orientalism(s), Green Orientalism, Humanistic Orientalism, Ideological Orientalism, Imperial Orientalism, Irish Orientalism, Jewish Orientalism, Liberal Orientalism, Marxist Orientalism, Negative Orientalism, New Ages Orientalism, Occidentalism, Oriental Enthusiasm, Orientalism in Reverse, Orientalist Buddhism, Orientalist Tourism, Paternalistic Orientalism, Peripheral Orientalism, Popular Orientalism, Post-Saidian Orientalism, Pre-Orientalism, Protean Orientalism, Renaissance Orientalism, Reverse Orientalism, Saidian Orientalism, Science Fiction Orientalism, Scottish Orientalism, Sinological Orientalism, Strategic Orientalism, Subversive Orientalism, Sympathetic Orientalism, Theological Orientalism, Transcendental Orientalism.

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Sources & Examples: Jørn Borup, “Branding Buddha – Mediatized and Commodified Buddhism as Cultural Narrative.” Journal of Global Buddhism 17 (2016); Kennet Granholm, “Locating the West: Problematizing the Western in Western Esotericism and Occultism.” In Occultism in a Global Perspective (Routledge, 2013); Thomas G. Jackson, Gothic Architecture in France, England, and Italy, v. 2 (Cambridge, 1915); Emma Kowal, Trapped in the Gap: Doing Good in Indigenous Australia (Berghahn Books, 2015); L. H. M. Ling, "Orientalism ReFashioned: 'Eastern Moon' Reflecting on 'Western Waters' Reflecting Back on the East China Sea," 2016. At ResearchGate (www.researchgate.net), accessed 6/19; Herbert R.Swanson,“Orientalism as an Ideology: the Utility of Said's Notion of Ideology for the Study of OrientalismIdeologies," 19 June 2020.  At Orientalismstudies.com (www.orientalismstudies.com); David L. Sweet, Avant-garde Orientalism: The Eastern 'Other' in Twentieth-Century Travel Narrative and Poetry (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017); Arthur Versluis, American Transcendentalism and Asian Religions (Oxford, 1993); Gordon White & Roger Goodman, “Welfare Orientalism and the Search for an East Asian Welfare Model.” In The East Asian Welfare Model: Welfare Orientalism and the State (Routledge, 1998); Thomas B. Wilson, “Old Chinatown.” Overland Monthly 58 (1911); Ouyang Yu, "Lawson, Gunn and the ‘White Chinaman’: A Look at How Chinese are Made White in Henry Lawson and Mrs. Aeneas Gunn's Writings." LiNQ 30 (2016). 

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Positivist Orientalism

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Scholars use this term and the term Orientalist positivism to describe a particular approach to the study of the Arab Middle East and Islam based on the philosophical theory of positivism, which holds that all of reality, human as well as natural, can be codified in absolutely reliable laws and requires that all knowledge be empirical and secular. The roots of this theory are found in the French Enlightenment. European scholars have thus used positivistic Orientalism to imagine and construct “Orientals” as having an essential, timeless nature, which these scholars believed could be known to them scientifically. Orientals, meanwhile, supposedly lacked the tools of positivist, empirical science and thus could not know themselves. Positivistic Orientalism is thought to have begun in the earlier 19th century and remained influential even after World War II. Although scholars generally do not specifically link positivistic Orientalism to the work of Edward W. Said, it is this kind of academic approach that Said criticized in Orientalism (1978). These terms, though not rare, are not frequently used.

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See also: Academic Orientalism, Byronic Orientalism, Ideological Orientalism, Philosophical Orientalism, Saidian Orientalism.

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Sources & Examples: Pavan K. Malreddy, Orientalism, Terrorism, Indigenism: South Asian Readings in Postcolonialism (SAGE, 2015); Chase F. Robinson, “Introduction.”  In The Formation of the Islamic World Sixth to Eleventh Centuries (Cambridge, 2011); Wendy M. K. Shaw, “The Islam in Islamic Art History: Secularism and Public Discourse.” Journal of Art Historiography 6 (2012).

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Postcolonial (Post-Colonial) Orientalism

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Scholars generally use this term usually in one of two ways: broadly speaking and somewhat less often, some use it to describe ways in which Orientalisms of the postcolonial era reflect similarities to and continuities with the classical Orientalism of the colonial era.  They, thus, imagine and construct Asians collectively in dualistic terms as being essentially and irredeemably different from the West.  For example, the French academic study of Asia (Hannoum, 2004) or, again, those in the arts articulate and portray representations of “the Orient” that recall similar representations in the colonial era.  More narrowly and somewhat more often, other scholars use this term to describe the ways in which postcolonial scholars and thinkers critical of colonialism unwittingly continue to frame their critiques of colonialism in covert Orientalist categories.  Lisa Lowe (1991) is generally credited with having first developed this line of argument and is often cited by other scholars who use it.  She argues that while postcolonial figures such as Julia Kristeva (1941- ) and Roland Barthes (1915-1980) criticized European Orientalist nationalist ideologies, “…their figurations of the Orient utilized some of the very same terms, postures, and rhetorics employed in the earlier texts.” (p. 138).  Classical Orientalist categories and constructs, that is, continue to “haunt” the thinking of its postcolonial critics.  In particular, these postcolonial scholars and thinkers continue to rely on the dualistic Orientalist image of a world divided between the East and West, each having an essential identity irrevocably opposed to the other. Some scholars include Edward W. Said (1978), the putative godfather of postcolonial studies, in this category.  Use of this term is not rare but also not frequent enough to consider it a significant one for the study of Orientalism.  [revised 8/20]

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See also: Academic Orientalism, Aesthetic Orientalism, Binary Orientalism, Classical Orientalism, Colonial Orientalism, Haunted Orientalism, Hidden Orientalism, Ideological Orientalism, Reverse Orientalism, Saidian Orientalism, Self-Orientalism.

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Sources & Examples: First Usage: Joseph S. Alter, “Shri Yodendra: Magic, Modernity, and the Burden of the Middle-Class Yogi.” In Gurus of Modern Yoga (Oxford, 2014); Théry Béord & Achim A. Merlo, "Orientalism in celluloid: the Production of the Crazy Year’." Social and Management Research Journal 14 (2017): 110-124; Abdelmajid Hannoum, "‘Faut-Il Brûler L’Orientalisme?’ On French Scholarship of North Africa." Cultural Dynamics 16 (2004); Marke Kivijärvi, “Orientalism in Finnish Strategy Discourse: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Business Opportunities in China” (Diss., U. of Eastern Finland, 2013).  Second Usage: Mahmoud Arghavan, “The Dilemma of Postcolonial and/or Orientalist Feminism in Iranian Diasporic Advocacy of Women’s Right in the Homeland.” In Middle East Studies after September 11: Neo-Orientalism, American Hegemony and Academia (Brill, 2008); Kathleen Biddick, “Coming Out of Exile:
 Dante on the Orient(alism) Express.” American Historical Review 105 (2000); Carol A. Breckenridge and Peter van der Veer, “Orientalism and the Postcolonial Predicament.” In Orientalism and the Postcolonial Predicament: Perspectives on South Asia (U. of Pennsylvania, 1993); Peter Heehs, "Shades of Orientalism: Paradoxes and Problems in Indian Historiography." History and Theory 42 (2003); Pranav Jani, “A Marxist Challenge 
to Postmodernist Orientalism.” International Socialist Review 104 (2017); Vasant Kaiwar, The Postcolonial Orient: The Politics of Difference and the Project of Provincialising Europe (Brill, 2014); Lisa Lowe, Critical Terrains: French and British Orientalisms (Cornell U., 1991).  Other: Edward W. Said, Orientalism (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978).

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Postmodern Orientalism

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Scholars use of this term to describe the same family of Orientalist phenomena that includes neo-Orientalism, contemporary Orientalism, and techno-Orientalism, sharing with these forms of Orientalism the same set of cybernetic, popular and highly commercialized mass media global platforms including the science fiction genre, cyberpunk, and the visual arts including especially films and even architecture.  The term postmodern Orientalism, in fact, is less often used than these other terms.  More broadly speaking, it is also a form of popular Orientalism with affinities to pop Orientalism as well as the poetry of beat Orientalism.  Within these contexts, however, scholars use this term to describe the peculiar way in which Orientalist authors, producers, and designers in recent decades often embrace postmodern perspectives and agendas while covertly still imagining and constructing Asians as having essentially unchanging, stereotypical identities.  Postmodern Orientalists can, for example, acknowledge that there is no such thing as a single Iranian identity while still describing Iranians with the same set of stereotypes used for Arab terrorists. (Pirnajmuddin & Borhan, 2011).  Masamichi Inoue (2014) observes that postmodern Orientalisms embrace the particularity of Japan but then treat it as being essentially a land of traditions, mystery, and sensuality—a Japan that is open to anybody but still has a single, essential, and unique culture.  Postmodern Orientalisms, thus, deny and reframe Orientalist stereotypes in ways that both restrain and enable them, that both affirm the randomness of reality and yet treat Asians as if they are known quantities.  Postmodern Orientalisms are overtly fluid and even self-contradictory, but covertly they are little changed from the ideological Orientalisms of the past, just less blatant, subtler.  The way in which scholars use this term, then, generally affirms Edward W. Said’s (1978) analysis of Orientalist ideologies (Saidian Orientalism) as being unjust, false, and pernicious, and it affirms their persistence into the postmodern era. [revised 7/20]

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See also: Antinomic Orientalism, Beat Orientalism, Cinematic Orientalism, Contemporary Orientalism, Cultural Orientalism, Ideological Orientalism, Imperial Orientalism, Late Orientalism, Literary Orientalism, Mature Orientalism, Neo-Orientalism, Neo-Victorian Orientalism, Pop Orientalism, Popular Orientalism, Saidian Orientalism, Techno-Orientalism, Virtual Orientalism.

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Sources & Examples: Jeffrey Cass, “Egypt on Steroids: Luxor Las Vegas and Postmodern Orientalism.”  In Architecture and Tourism: Perception, Performance and Place (Berg, 2004); Robbie B. H. Goh, “Supernatural Interactions, Eastern Ghosts, and Postmodern Narrative: Angela Carter’s ‘Fireworks’.” ARIEL 30 (1999); Masamichi Inoue, “‘Japan’ as a Sanctuary: Transformation and Dissolution of Orientalism on a University Campus in the United States.” Japanese Journal of Cultural Anthropology 79 (2014); Joe L. Kincheloe, “Introduction.” In The Miseducation of the West: How Schools and the Media Distort Our Understanding of the Islamic World (Praeger, 2004); H. Pirnajmuddin & A. Borhan, “Postmodern Orientalized Terrorism: Don DeLillo’s The Names.” Journal of Teaching Language Skills 3 (2011); Edward W. Said, Orientalism (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978); Leonard P. Sanders, “Postmodern Orientalism: William Gibson, Cyberpunk and Japan” (Ph.D. diss. Massey U., 2008); Herbert R. Swanson, “Orientalism as an Ideology: The Utility of Said’s Notion of Ideology for the Study of Orientalism,” 2020.  At Orientalismstudies.com; Sabrina Q. Yu, Jet Li: Chinese Masculinity and Transnational Film Stardom (Edinburgh U., 2012); Timothy Yu, “Oriental Cities, Postmodern Futures: Naked Lunch, Blade Runner, and Necromancer.” MELIUS 33 (2008); Timothy Yu, Race and the Avant-garde: Experimental and Asian American Poetry Since 1965 (Stanford, 2009).

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Post-Orientalism (Postorientalism)

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Scholars use this term usually in one of three distinct ways.  First and most often, they use it to refer to the ongoing study of ideological Orientalist discourses, institutions, and practices after the publication of Edward W. Said’s Orientalism in 1978. Post-Orientalism, thus, is the continuation and expansion of Said’s critique of classical Orientalism in all of its forms.  Second, some scholars argue that more recent, critical scholarly discourses concerning ideological Orientalism continue to fall into the same traps as ideological Orientalism itself as a form of hidden Orientalism. In this usage, thus, Post-Orientalism represents a largely covert continuity with ideological Orientalism where in the first usage it represents a break from ideological Orientalism. Third and rarely, this term is used to describe the application of ideological Orientalist categories by the Other (the “Orientals”) against Western ideological Orientalism as a form of reverse Orientalism.

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See also: Classical Orientalism, Critical Orientalism, Hidden Orientalism, Old Orientalism, Post-Saidian Orientalism, Reverse Orientalism.

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Sources & Examples: Katherine Binhammer, et al., “Srinivas Aravamudan’s Enlightenment Orientalism: Resisting the Rise of the Novel: A Roundtable Discussion.” Lumen 33 (2014); Philippe Calia, “’Representing the Other’ Today: Contemporary Photography in the Light of the Postcolonial Debate (With a Special Focus on India).” Revista Forma 4 (2011); Hamid Dabashi, Post-Orientalism: Knowledge and Power in a Time of Terror (Transaction, 2009); Christina Klein, Cold War Orientalism: Asia in the Middlebrow Imagination, 1945-1961 (U. of California, 2003); Malreddy P. Kumar, "Introduction: Orientalism(s) after 9/11." Journal of Postcolonial Writing 48 (2012); Mutapha K. Pasha, “Civilizations, Postorientalism, and Islam.” In Civilizational Identity: The Production and Reproduction of "Civilizations” in International Relations (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007); Douglas Peers, “Orientalism.” In Encyclopedia of Historians and Historical Writing, v. 2 (Fitzroy Dearborn, 1999); Gyan Prakash, "Writing Post-Orientalist Histories of the Third World: Indian Historiography Is Good To Think." In Colonialism and Culture (U. of Michigan, 1992).

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Post-Saidian Orientalism

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Broadly, scholars sometimes use this term to describe developments in the academic study of Orientalism since Edward W. Said published his groundbreaking work, Orientalism, in 1978.  More specifically, most scholars use it to describe developments since 1978 that take the study of Orientalism in new directions in reaction to Said’s approach (i.e. Saidian Orientalism), which is seen as being pejorative, dualistic (West vs. East), essentializing, and tending to reduce Orientalism to its complicity in European colonialism and Western imperialism.  Post-Saidian approaches and analysis seek, thus, to treat historical Orientalisms with greater balance and see them as being more complex, diverse, pluralistic, and interactive.  They often focus on similarities rather than differences.  Edhem Eldem (2007), however, argues that post-Saidian Orientalism can itself be a form of Orientalism that expresses an almost naïve, innocent enthusiasm for Asia, which eschews both arrogance and political correctness. Jean-Gabríel Leturcq (2016) makes the point that in any event post-Saidian approaches must still deal with Said and take a stand concerning him, arguing that the study of Orientalism after Said necessarily lacks "serenity" even as it seeks to move beyond dualistic confrontation.  This term is not rare but also not frequently used.  [revised 7/20]

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See also: Critical Orientalism, Ideological Orientalism, Post-Orientalism, Positive Orientalism, Pre-Saidian Orientalism, Saidian Orientalism.

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Sources & Examples: Post-Saidian Orientalism: Subrata Dasgupta, The Bengal Renaissance: Identity and Creativity from Rammohun Roy to Rabindranath Tagore (Permanent Black, 2007); Edhem Eldem, Consuming the Orient (Ottoman Bank Archive & Research Centre, 2007); Jean-Gabríel Leturcq, “Orientalism After Edward Said,” 2016. At Jean-Gabríel Leturcq (https://leturcq.wordpress.com), accessed 7/20; Silke Schmidt, (Re-)Framing the Arab/Muslim
Mediating Orientalism in Contemporary Arab American Life Writing (Transcript Verlag, 2015); Claire Scobie, “The Representation of the Figure of the Devadasi in European Travel Writing and Art from 1770 to 1820…” (Doctorate of Creative Arts diss., U. of Western Sydney, 2013); Nitin Sinha, Communication and Colonialism in Eastern India: Bihar, 1760s-1880s (Anthem Press, 2012).  Uses Term Post-Saidian Analysis: Michael J. Franklin, “Representing India in Drawing-Room and Classroom; or, Miss Owenson and ‘Those Gay Gentlemen, Brahma, Vishnu, and Co.’” In Interrogating Orientalism: Contextual Approaches and Pedagogical Practices (Ohio State U., 2006); Hsu-Ming Teo, “American Popular Culture Through the Lens of Saidian and Post-Saidian Orientalist Critiques.” Critical Race and Whiteness Studies 10 (2014).  Uses Term Post-Saidian Approach: Jeffrey Cass, “Interrogating Orientalism: Theories and Practices.” In Interrogating Orientalism: Contextual Approaches and Pedagogical Practices (Ohio State U., 2006).

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Post-Victorian Orientalism. See Neo-Victorian Orientalism.

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Post-Zionist Orientalism. See Zionist Orientalism.

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Practical Orientalism (19th Century)

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Nineteenth-century scholars used this term to describe the (practical) manner in which “Orientals” actually lived their daily lives, generally understood to be exotic, quaint, and backward (see Bennet, 1875).  More narrowly, the Scottish Orientalist, John B. Gilchrist (1759-1841), and others used this term in the earlier 19th century to describe what they took to be an alternative approach to that of Sir William Jones (1746-1794) for the study of indigenous languages in colonial India, particularly Hindustani.  In contrast to Jones and other academic specialists, Gilchrist devised “practical Orientalism” as a simplified, less scholarly, and easier course of study aimed at giving colonial officials and others a functional (i.e. “practical”) knowledge of Indian languages.  His goal was to aid British colonial governmental oversight and control as well as commercial development, and his approach facilitated British efforts to fabricate supposedly indigenous systems of law and administration by relying on obscure, often forgotten Indian texts. [revised 1/21]

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See also: Administrative Orientalism, Colonial Orientalism, Constructive Orientalism, Utilitarian Orientalism.

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Sources & Examples: James H. Bennet, Winter and Spring on the Shores of the Mediterranean (J. & A. Churchill, 1875); Solomon I. Baevskii, Early Persian Lexicography: Farhangs of the Eleventh to the Fifteenth Centuries (Global Oriental, 2007); C. A. Bayly, “British Orientalism and the Indian ‘Rational Tradition’ c. 1780-1820,” South Asia Research 14 (1994); James H. Bennet, Winter and Spring on the Shores of the Mediterranean (J. & A. Churchill, 1875); John B. Gilchrist, Dialogues, English and Hindoostanee; for Illustrating the Grammatical Principles of the Strangers’ East Indian Guide… ((Kingsbury, Parbury, & Allen, 1826); John B. Gilchrist, The General East India Guide and Vade Mecum… (Kingsbury, Parbury, & Allen, 1825); John B. Gilchrist, The Orienti-Occidental Tuitionary Pioneer to Literary Pursuits… (U. of St. Andrews, Library, 1816); Rita Raley, “A Teleology of Letters; or, From a ‘Common Source’ to a Common Language,” 2000.  At Romantic Circles (https://romantic-circles.org), accessed 8/20.

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Practical Orientalism (Post-Said)

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Since Edward W. Said’s groundbreaking book, Orientalism (1978), which focused primarily on academic and literary texts, scholars have used this term to explore the ramifications of his critique of the notion of Orientalism for everyday (“practical”) life.  Michael Herzfeld (1991) seems to have been the first to use it and, along with Michael Haldrup, Lasse Koefoed, & Kirsten Simonsen (2006), remains a key source for its usage.  Herzfeld states that, “Practical orientalism is the translation of hegemonic ideology into everyday practice so that it infiltrates the habitual spaces of ordinary experience.” (2005, p. 134)  He focuses in particular on how ordinary people interpret things that they see, experience, and feel in their daily lives through the lens of ideological Orientalism, transforming abstract stereotypes into personal attitudes and behavior.  Haldrup, et. al. similarly argue that practical Orientalisms are “…articulated through processes of ‘othering‘ developed in the concrete bodily encounters in everyday life.” (2006, p. 5)  Thus things such as personal encounters, foods, music, clothing, hearing foreign languages, and television programming can all trigger cultural stereotypes and prejudices, including the sexual objectification of women, which discern what is alien (Other) and what is familiar (Self).  They emphasize the banal, everyday nature of practical Orientalism, which can be especially triggered in encounters between tourists and local people where the tourists see local people with an invasive, stereotypical Orientalist gaze.  Practical Orientalisms are one means of exercising power over those who are seen, experienced, or felt to be different, alien.  Scholars use this term fairly frequently and most often cite either Herzfeld or Haldrup et. al. when using it. [revised from Practical Orientalism, 8/20]

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See also: Banal Orientalism, Culinary Orientalism, Cultural Orientalism, Ideological Orientalism, Orientalist Common Sense, Orientalist Gaze, Orientalist Tourism, Saidian Orientalism, Sexual Orientalism.

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Sources & Examples: Nikos Bozatzis, "Cultural Othering, Banal Occidentalism and the Discursive Construction of the ‘Greek Crisis’ in Global Media: A Case Study.” Suomen Antropologi 4 (2016); Tabea D. Friedel, “Practical Orientalism in Mass Media
An Analysis of the Media Reporting in Relation to the Sexual Assaults in Cologne by the German TV Channel ZDF” (M.A. thesis, Lund U., 2016); Michael Haldrup, “Banal Tourism? Between Cosmopolitanism and Orientalism.” In Cultures of Mass Tourism: Doing the Mediterranean in the Age of Banal Mobilities (Ashgate, 2009); Michael Haldrup, Lasse Koefoed, & Kirsten Simonsen, "Practical Orientalism: Bodies, Everyday Life and the Construction of Otherness." Geografiska Annaler. Series B, Human Geography 88 (2006); Michael Herzfeld, Cultural Intimacy: Social Poetics in the Nation-State, 2nd ed. (Routledge, 2005); Michael Herzfeld, A Place in History: Social and Monumental Time in a Cretan Town (Princeton U., 1991); Michael Herzfeld, "Spatial Cleansing: Monumental Vacuity and the Idea of the West." Journal of Material Culture 11 (2006); Jana Mauthner, “‘Othering’ in the Postcolonial World: The Reproduction of Colonial Structures in African Societies (Malawi).” In The Political Geography of Religious Radicalism (Universität Tübingen, 2013); Vives Riera, et. al.,  “Festive Traditions and Tourism in Mallorca: Ludic Transgressions and the Disruption of Otherness.” Tourist Studies 20 (2020); Silke Schmidt, (Re-)Framing the Arab/Muslim: Mediating Orientalism in Contemporary Arab American Life Writing (Transcript Verlag, 2012); Kirsten Simonsen, "Practice, Narrative and the Multicultural City' A Copenhagen Case." European Urban and Regional Studies 15 (2008).

 

Pragmatic Orientalism

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Although not rare, scholarly use of this term is largely limited to the work of three scholars and others who cite them: first, Alistair Pennycook (1998) uses it to describe a dispute between “classicists” and “vernacularists” regarding the teaching of English in 19th century colonial India, which he argues impacted English-language instruction in other British colonies.  The vernacularists argued for a “pragmatic” approach that favored English but accommodated the use of Indian languages, particularly Hindustani.  Second, Leonard Binder (1988) uses this term to describe the views of the American Islamist, Marshall Hodgson (1922-1968).  According to Binder, Hodgson articulated a “pragmatic” approach that sought to balance emphases on the ideals of Islam on the one hand and its practical realities on the other.  Other scholars cite Binder as arguing that Hodgson used “pragmatic Orientalism” to establish a middle ground between “good” and “bad” Orientalisms.  Third, Gregory P. Grieve (2006) uses this term to describe the way in which Nepali local governments “pragmatically” manipulate Western Orientalist stereotypes of the exotic Orient to promote their communities as tourist destinations.  Use of this term is otherwise rare. [8/20]

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See also: Constructive Orientalism, Ideological Orientalism, Micro-Orientalism, Orientalist Tourism, Practical Orientalism (19th Century), Reverse Orientalism.

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Sources & Examples: Leonard Binder, Islamic Liberalism: A Critique of Development Ideologies (U. of Chicago, 1988); Gregory P. Grieve, Retheorizing Religion in Nepal (Palgrave Macmillan, 2006); Delia M. C. Konzett, Hollywood's Hawaii: Race, Nation, and War (Rutgers U., 2017); Joe Lockard, “Review: Alastair Pennycook, English and the Discourses of Colonialism,” 1999. At academia.edu (www.academia.edu), accessed 8/20; Alistair Pennycook, English and the Discourses of Colonialism (Routledge, 1998); Michael E. Salla, “Political Islam and the West: A New Cold War or Convergence?” Third World Quarterly 18 (1997); Bryan S. Turner & Habibul H. Khondker, Globalization East and West (SAGE, 2010).

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Pre-Colonial (Precolonial) Orientalism

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Although rare, this term is used by a few scholars to refer to the origins of ideological Orientalism among Europeans stationed in India prior to the colonial era. Ganesh Ramarishanan sees those origins in developments in Britain, and Sheldon Pollock, who also uses the term pre-Orientalist Orientalism, observes them in Germany.

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See also: Early Orientalism, Nascent Orientalism, Pre-Orientalism.

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Sources & Examples: Siraj Ahmed,  “Orientalism and the Permanent Fix of War.” In The Postcolonial Enlightenment: Eighteenth-Century Colonialism and Postcolonial Theory (Oxford, 2009); Rajiv Malhotra, The Battle for Sanskrit: Is Sanskrit Political or Sacred, Oppressive or Liberation, Dead or Alive? (HarperCollins, 2016); Ganesh Ramakrishanan, “The Shallowness of Pollock’s ‘Deep Orientalism,’” 2016. At Indian People’s Congress (https://indianpeoplescongress.wordpress.com), accessed 6/16.

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Pre-Critical Orientalism. See Critical Orientalism.