Introduction: Establishing the Boundaries

Abstract

Edward Said’s Orientalism (1978) ushered in a new genre of scholarship and narration that sought to explore various aspects of the impact of Western colonialism and Orientalism on Eastern societies, particularly in realms of culture, literature, and discursive representation. Although Said confined his work to mainly British and French Orientalism in and about Moslem societies, his visions and ideas culminated in the development and evolution of a large body of scholarship that focused on various aspects of Orientalism, colonialism, neocolonialism, nationalism, and so forth (Hulme, 1986; Behdad, 1994; Harlow, 1999; Edwards, 2000; Jersild, 2002; Benjamin, 2003; Bohrer, 2003; Yoshihara, 2003; Lockman, 2004; Kalmar and Penslar, 2005). Thus works were developed around such notions as Japanese Orientalism (Tanaka, 1993), Asian Orientalism (Hay, 1970), German Orientalism (Murti, 2001), Italian Orientalism (Schneider, 1998), and American Orientalism (Little, 2002), which looked into the imperial/Orientalist approach of these societies to their surrounding world—to their “Other,” as it were.

My idea in Orientalism is to use humanistic critique to open up the fields of struggle, to introduce a longer sequence of thought and analysis to replace the short bursts of polemical, thought-stopping fury that so imprison us … Our role is to widen the field of discussion.

(Edward Said, August 7, 2003, p. 3)