Lectures I and II
Early 20th century developments – ripening conditions for challenging western political and cultural hegemony:
World War I as watershed – worldwide social / economic disruptions; spread of nationalism in the third world
“Decolonization” as a worldwide historical process, gaining momentum especially after the Second World War
Main agendas of anti-colonial struggle: gaining independence; and the reconstruction of local identity
Decolonization interlinked with (and as impetus for) the student movement, the anti-war, civil rights, feminist, and gay and lesbian movements (50s, 60s, 70s)
Decolonization movement’s intellectual foundations:
1. Challenging western colonial authority and oppression (military, political, economic)
2. Critique of cultural norms, mental habits and intellectual traditions and practices used to subjugate the non-western world
Frantz Fanon (1925-1961)
Fanon
The predicament of decolonization and westernization: Assuming the mental frameworks and intellectual norms of the colonizer – having to operate with the western intellectual baggage, even when searching for local roots and authentic identity
The Wretched of the Earth (1961): the necessity of “purifying violence” during anti-colonial struggle
Anouar Abdel Malek: Orientalism in Crisis (1963): The agenda of Orientalism (as a scholarly field – the scientific study of the Orient) and its links with imperialist /
colonial modes of subjugation and control – Eurocentrist biases embedded in the social sciences
Abdel Lateef Tibawi: English-Speaking Orientalists (1964): Orientalism’s religious
prejudices and hostility towards Islam
Edward W. Said: Orientalism (1978)
Edward Said1. Academic field of Orientalism, as body of scientific knowledge and expertise (used to sustain and nourish cultural biases and stereotypes)
2. Orientalism as pervasive cultural construct, a system of thought (an internalized body of thoughts, images, practices, embedded stereotypes, and unconscious cultural attitudes and reflexes) used by the west to envision and create its “oriental other” – an integral part of the creation of European self-identity. Orientalism’s accumulated negative images used to justify western (colonial) intervention in the non-western world
Orientalism’s intimate linkage to structures of power: The image of the Orient shaped and informed by the unequal power relation between the east and the west
Orientalism as a potent tool for serving and justifying colonialism and imperialism Orientalism as an inordinately complex and systematic cultural / institutional mechanism for defining, portraying, and controlling the Orient.
