This book represents a remarkable synthesis of recent discussion and debate regarding crucial aspects of postmodernization, religious change and the globalization of world society.
'... this stimulating and provoking collection of essays which, using various conceptual templates, explores the relationship between critiques of orientalism, postmodernism, and the changing role of intellectuals in an increasingly globalized world. Turner is a fine organizer and sifter of the history of sociological thought' - Ecumene
During the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth, German universities were at the forefront of scholarship in Oriental studies. Drawing upon a comprehensive survey of thousands of German publications on the Middle East from this period, this book presents a detailed history of the development of Orientalism.
Offering an alternative to the view of Orientalism as a purely intellectual pursuit or solely as a function of politics, this book traces the development of the discipline as a profession.
At a crucial and timely moment in the history of relations between the West and Islam, Orientalism provides the context and background for understanding where the fault-lines of this fraught relationship lie.
* An important topical reprise of the critical debate about western images and stereotypes of the Arab world and Islam. * Provides essential background to understanding this part of the world and offers a brief history of the debate regarding orientalism, as defined by Said and others.
In the period of decolonization that followed World War II, a number of scholars, mainly Middle Eastern, launched a sustained assault on Orientalism-the theory and practice of representing the "East" in Western thought-accusing its practitioners of misrepresentation, prejudice and bias. An intense debate ensued, involving not only Orientalists but historians, sociologists, anthropologists, literary critics, scholars of cultural studies and gender studies as well as the news media.
Cold War Orientalism: Asia in the Middlebrow Imagination, 1945-1961
In the years following World War II, American writers and artists produced a steady stream of popular stories about Americans living, working, and traveling in Asia and the Pacific. Meanwhile the U.S., competing with the Soviet Union for global power, extended its reach into Asia to an unprecedented degree. This book reveals that these trends--the proliferation of Orientalist culture and the expansion of U.S. power--were linked in complex and surprising ways.