Soccer Dad

Orientalism

Crossing the Rubicon2 quotes from a book review:

The late Edward Said’s Orientalism, published in 1978 and an ongoing campus best-seller since, fatally tarnished the designation “Orientalist,” an honorific title previously embraced by scholars of the Eastern Muslim world.

I tried reading Orientalism, without much success. Despite being written by a professor of English literature, the prose incredibly dense. Still the point of Said's book - and a theme consistently repeated through his writing - was that Westerners could not properly study and write about Islam. Any attempt by a Westerner to do so meant that the scholar was judging the Islamic world and was, therefore, racist. This view had the distinct advantage of shutting down debate or any serious academic inquiry. Even now it appears that Said's ideas hold sway in the halls of academia more than the ideas of Bernard Lewis despite the fact that 1) Said's academic area of interest was not the Middle East and Lewis's is and 2) Said introduced no sense of inquiry to his work on the Middle East, his game was creating definitions to limit inquiry whereas Lewis studies the Middle East with an eye toward learning something new.
What's remarkable is the degree to which academia supports Said.
When Justus Reid Weiner debunked Edward Said's myths about himself, there was an avalanche of letters to Commentary from academics protesting Weiner's temerity for challenging an icon who was above reproach. (Said was "fake but accurate" according to these academics.)
I've read a little bit of Bernard Lewis (one book, several articles). One thing that emerges is that despite his criticisms of the Islamic world it is a world that he loves. Of course that matters little in today's academic world where hewing to a political ine is more important than is open inquiry.
Crossposted on Israpundit and Soccer Dad.

Posted by SoccerDad at March 3, 2005 5:40 AM