Orientalism has been coined a concept by Edward Said, a literary scholar and Anthropologist. The diction behind this literary masterpiece was that Orientalism has affected and highly influenced the way the West perceives and depicts the Middle East and its people. Said exposes Western civilization and shows how white superiority allowed people to reevaluate their own beliefs about the Middle East. With these stereotypical beliefs and white superiority, many people now have false depictions of the Middle East. As a Middle Eastern, I personally thought this course text was really interesting and perfectly academically challenging. It allowed me to realize how important it is to learn about how the Middle East has been historically underrated and misunderstood by Westerners. This reading also allowed me to analyze real-life stereotypes that I face and connect them with ideas that Edward Said claimed. Although the text contained difficult and tough expressions, they needed to be said and analyzed in order to understand how important Orientalism is in understanding the Middle East’s culture. I think it’s important to learn where this definition of Orientalism derived from because it is biased and not an innocent belief. By viewing Orientalism as a dynamic exchange and art, it is easy to understand the Western point of view. The Western perspective of Orientalism was viewed in two elements, their point of view and then ours, which makes this text really intriguing to learn about. Without this general context of Orientalism provided, we would not be able to understand how this idea arrived or what makes it important to today’s history.
New Blogs!
