Orientalism by Edward W. Said is a nice piece to read considering the assignment we were given for our midterm. In this piece, Said explores The Orient and what it means to Americans, Europeans, and to the scholars that study Orientalism (which he has referred to as Orientalists). For our midterm, we were told to include a dictionary entry for the word that we choose. In Orientalism, Said tries to define Orientalism in different meanings based on how Orientalism is perceived in the . Although these meanings are not dictionary entries, I do feel like the way that Said talks about these interpretations of The Orient’s meaning is something we should use for our midterms. After nabbing a definition of our word we should try to point out how these words are viewed by those in the course readings we must use for our assignment. The definition of words vary from person to person, time period, whether it’s being defined academically and other factors. Said points this out himself.

Said’s definition is: “Orientalism is a style of thought based upon an ontological and epistemological distinction made between ‘The Orient’ and (most of the time) ‘the Occident.'” His definition is interesting because it implies that what makes something Orientalism is whether or not Westerns consider the thought to be alien from their own. This makes a lot of sense because if it was a general thought or idea, Westerners, especially the ones doing the colonizing, would consider it to be basic principles that Europeans have invented first. I do agree with this definition considering Orientalism is a way to alienate the East from the West, using the term to mark them as outsiders. I do think to an extent cultural interpretations of common ideas could be labeled in order to appreciate the uniqueness of said culture. An example of this that I can think of is how different dragons are depicted in Chinese mythology compared to Arthurian legend.

A question that stems from the distinction is: “What makes someone qualified to define these cultures?” In my personal experience, someone deeply involved in said culture should have the write to define it. After all, it’s better to describe something by what it has than what it doesn’t. When a Westerner describes Orientalism it tends to be based on what Orientalism lacks compared to Western concepts but when someone involved in Orientalism is to describe it, the result would allow us to understand the concept more.

This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.