For subsequent editions of Orientalism, Said wrote an 'Afterword' (1995) and a 'Preface' (2003)addressing criticisms of the content, substance, and style of the work as cultural criticism. The scope of Said's scholarship established Orientalism as a foundation text in the field of post-colonial culture studies, which examines the denotations and connotations of Orientalism, and the history of a country's post-colonial period.Īs a public intellectual, Edward Said debated Orientalism with historians and scholars of area studies, notably, the historian Bernard Lewis, who described the thesis of Orientalism as 'anti-Western'.

The critical application of post-structuralism in the scholarship of Orientalism influenced the development of literary theory, cultural criticism, and the field of Middle Eastern studies, especially regarding how academics practice their intellectual inquiry when examining, describing, and explaining the Middle East. Firstly in Orientalism, Said predominantly analyses 18th-19th Century Orientalist academic writing, which in the West has given anyone who reads such works a particular and supposedly. According to Said, orientalism (the Western scholarship about the Eastern World) is inextricably tied to the imperialist societies who produced it, which makes much Orientalist work inherently political and servile to power.Īccording to Said, in the Middle East, the social, economic, and cultural practices of the ruling Arab elites indicate they are imperial satraps who have internalized the romanticized 'Arab Culture' created by French, British and, later, American Orientalists the examples include critical analyses of the colonial literature of Joseph Conrad, which conflates a people, a time, and a place into a narrative of incident and adventure in an exotic land.

Said, in which the author discusses Orientalism, defined as the West's patronizing representations of 'The East'-the societies and peoples who inhabit the places of Asia, North Africa, and the Middle East.

Orientalism by Edward W. Said