Week 7 Seminar Notes

Seminar Outline
1. HOUSEKEEPING (17.30-17.45)

- CRITICAL CASE STUDY &amp; PARTICIPATION

2. INDIVIDUAL RAT (17.45-18.00)

3. TEAM RAT (18.00-18.20)

4. CHALLENGES (18.20-18.25) - ONLY IF REQUIRED

5. LECTURE INPUT &amp; "WHY" QUESTIONS (18.25-19.10)

6. ACTIVITY/APPLICATIONS (19.20-20.00)

7. DEVELOP TEAM PROJECT QUESTION/STATEMENT (20.00-20.15)

Important Information, Ideas &amp; Questions
Discourse and Power

General Definition of "Discourse": Discourse is concerned with patterns of communication. Discourse not only talks "about" but the "What" and "How" is possible to know. Discourse is concerned about the systematic pattern of dommunication (as opposed to a single source or text) and is built around an "archive" of discursive formation, which maps out a way of thinking about a certain issues/topic (eg: academic discourse, oriental discourse). Discourse constitutes objects (the thing,or person) and subject (us, the speaker). It defines a certain set if relations.

discourse is a body of language-use that is unified by common assumptions. discourse will define identity, describe what characteristics are possible for a person. the concept of discourse resembles that of ideology, but without that latter's involvement in class relations and its insistence that there is a separate realm of truth.

It is a systematic pattern and takes shapes around an archive of statements, texts, imageries, etc.

Power/Knowledge

Quote from Foucault: “We should admit that power produces knowledge…That power and knowledge directly imply one another; that there is no power relation without the correlative constitution of a field of knowledge, nor any knowledge that does not presuppose and constitute power relations.”

The form of knowledge established through discourse and the framework it gives us, shape our everyday life -&gt; discourse is an exercise of power.

Thus: Knowledge produces Power. Institutions of Power and nodes (or structures) of Knowledge are interchangeably linked and dependent on each others.

Edward Said argues that knowledge can never be apolitical, objective and/or detached from circumstance, political influences and worldly and/or cultural conditioning.

The Oriental Discourse

The oriental discourse is a western discourse of the orient. Orientalism talks about what the orient is. It is also a field of study. Orientalism is a discourse that articulates the orient in a subordinate relationship to the west. It naturalised the idea of superiority of the west, and the "exotic" nature of the Orient. The West and the Orient are intimately linked and find their position in the binary opposition to the other. Orientalism is also a politically willed position that was established simply because it could be established.

The Orient is a European invention, BUT it is not a fantasy, but based on language, tradition, culture and history of the orient. (manifest Orientalism) Orientalism is shaped by power struggle between Europe and what lies beyond her boarders. The Oriental discourse enables, justifies, supports, ratifies European real-world colonialism and practice.

The orient is perceived as backward, passive, sinful, inferior being in binary opposition to Europe who thus must be forward thinking, dynamic, right, superior. The Orient was perceived as a subject to be studied, judged, disciplined and described, and is represented (is talked about, not being able to represent itself) by dominating frameworks.

Clark Oriental Enlightenment, argues, Orientalism, is based on the western doubt and anxiety about the west's own position and moral superiority. The West is trying to find a "cure" for this anxiety and uneasiness about itself. The encounter of West and East was also positive (as in "not only negative") as the West searched for an answer of the East for a "corrective measure" regarding the West's uneasiness and doubt about themselves.

Orientalism is a discourse of western domination over the orient. It is also related to the relationship to the west.

Orient is not natural. It is an idea with a tradition and history. Orient is an European invention/construction, not a European fantasy.

The West and the orient is connected.

Flexible Positional Superiority (FPS)

FPS allows for the orient to be classified as both "good" and "bad" - even at the same time, yet always stays under western control and superiority.

FPS allows one, to disagree with Ortientalism, but always only from withing the framework of Orientalism.

The "archive" of Orientalism offers a number of ways to look at the orient. Orientalism is a complex instance of cultural hegemony, in which the west never loosed the upper hand! Orientalism is also an expression of power which expresses itself in a real fashion (eg. Gulf War I)

Additional Text: (Source: Wikipedia)

Said's main argument:

Said asserts that much western study of Islamic civilization was political intellectualism bent on self-affirmation rather than objective study,[14] a form of racism, and a tool of imperialist domination.[15] Orientalism had an impact on the fields of literary theory, cultural studies and human geography, and to a lesser extent on those of history and oriental studies. Taking his cue from the work of Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault, and from earlier critics of western Orientalism such as A. L. Tibawi,[16] Anouar Abdel-Malek,[17] Maxime Rodinson,[18] and Richard William Southern,[19] Said argued that Western writings on the Orient, and the perceptions of the East purveyed in them, are suspect, and cannot be taken at face value. According to Said, the history of European colonial rule and political domination over the East distorts the writings of even the most knowledgeable, well-meaning and sympathetic Western ‘Orientalists’ (a term that he transformed into a pejorative):

''“I doubt if it is controversial, for example, to say that an Englishman in India or Egypt in the later nineteenth century took an interest in those countries which was never far from their status in his mind as British colonies. To say this may seem quite different from saying that all academic knowledge about India and Egypt is somehow tinged and impressed with, violated by, the gross political fact – and yet that is what I am saying in this study of Orientalism.''

Glossary
Orientalism is "a manner of regularized (or Orientalized) writing, vision, and study, dominated by imperatives, perspectives, and ideological biases ostensibly suited to the Orient." It is the image of the 'Orient' expressed as an entire system of thought and scholarship.

signifies a system of representations framed by political forces that brought the Orient into Western learning, Western consciousness, and Western empire. The Orient exists for the West, and is constructed by and in relation to the West. It is a mirror image of what is inferior and alien ("Other") to the West.

The Orient signifies a system of representations framed by political forces that brought the Orient into Western learning, Western consciousness, and Western empire. The Orient exists for the West, and is constructed by and in relation to the West. It is a mirror image of what is inferior and alien ("Other") to the West.

Orientalism is "a manner of regularized (or Orientalized) writing, vision, and study, dominated by imperatives, perspectives, and ideological biases ostensibly suited to the Orient." It is the image of the 'Orient' expressed as an entire system of thought and scholarship.

The Oriental is the person represented by such thinking. The man is depicted as feminine, weak, yet strangely dangerous because poses a threat to white, Western women. The woman is both eager to be dominated and strikingly exotic. The Oriental is a single image, a sweeping generalization, a stereotype that crosses countless cultural and national boundaries.

Latent Orientalism is the unconscious, untouchable certainty about what the Orient is. Its basic content is static and unanimous. The Orient is seen as separate, eccentric, backward, silently different, sensual, and passive. It has a tendency towards despotism and away from progress. It displays feminine penetrability and supine malleability. Its progress and value are judged in terms of, and in comparison to, the West, so it is always the Other, the conquerable, and the inferior.

Manifest Orientalism is what is spoken and acted upon. It includes information and changes in knowledge about the Orient as well as policy decisions founded in Orientalist thinking. It is the expression in words and actions of Latent Orientalism.

From; http://www.english.emory.edu/Bahri/Orientalism.html