Orientalism - Edward Said - Postcolonial Studies

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1. Orientalism is a book by Edward W. Said published in _________, in which the author discusses Orientalism, defined as the West's patronizing representations of "The East"—the societies and peoples who inhabit the places of Asia, North Africa, and the Middle East.

1 point

1978

1988

1968

1998

Clear selection

2. What is Orientalism?

Write about the concept of 'Orientalism' and not only about the book 'Orientalism'

2 points

Orientalism, Western scholarly discipline of the 18th and 19th centuries that encompassed the study of the languages, literatures, religions, philosophies, histories, art, and laws of Asian societies, especially ancient ones.

Orientalism, Eastern scholarly discipline of the 18th and 19th centuries that encompassed the study of the languages, literatures, religions, philosophies, histories, art, and laws of Western societies, especially modern ones.

Orientalism, Western scholarly discipline of the 20th and 21st centuries that encompassed the study of the languages, literatures, religions, philosophies, histories, art, and laws of Asian societies, especially ancient ones.

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3. What is the purpose of Edward Said's project in his ground breaking work 'Orientalism'?

2 points

It is to understand how "Orientalism” is a way of seeing that imagines, emphasizes, exaggerates and distorts differences of European peoples and cultures as compared to that of Arabs and the Eastern people. It often involves seeing European culture as exotic, backward, uncivilized, and at times dangerous.

It is to understand how "Orientalism” is a way of seeing that imagines, emphasizes, exaggerates and distorts differences of Arab peoples and cultures as compared to that of Europe and the U.S. It often involves seeing Arab culture as exotic, backward, uncivilized, and at times dangerous.

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4. What is main argument in Orientalism?

2 points

a dominant European political ideology created the notion of the Orient in order to subjugate and control it.

a dominant Indian political ideology created the notion of the Orient in order to subjugate and control it.

a dominant European political ideology created the notion of the Occident in order to subjugate and control it.

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6. The term 'exotic' is used to describe the 'Orient'. What is the problem with this term?

2 points

Exotic stands for racialized, feminized, and often sexualized culture from a distant land. The exotic dancer means 'streaptease performer and thus nudity is regular and public occurrence in the 'East'

Exotic stands for something romantic, beautiful and wonderful. It also speaks of beautiful people of the East

Exotic stands for adventurous life - the life in deep forests, mountains, valleys, rivers - a highly romanticised people with rich ornaments, palaces etc.

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5. In his groundbreaking 1978 text Orientalism, the late cultural critic and theorist Edward Saïd argued that . . .

1 point

a dominant European political ideology created the notion of the Orient in order to subjugate and control it.

a dominant Indian political ideology created the notion of the Orient in order to subjugate and control it.

a dominant European political ideology created the notion of the Occident in order to subjugate and control it.

Clear selection

Reading painting to understand Said's arguments in Orientalism

As art historian Linda Nochlin argued in her widely read essay, “The Imaginary Orient,” from 1983, the task of critical art history is to assess the power structures behind any work of art or artist. Following Nochlin’s lead, art historians have questioned underlying power dynamics at play in the artistic representations of the "Orient," many of them from the nineteenth century. In doing so, these scholars challenged not only the ways that the “West” represented the “East,” but they also complicate the long held misconception of a unidirectional westward influence. Similarly, these scholars questioned how artists have represented people of the Orient as passive or licentious subjects. (Linda Nochlin, “The Imaginary Orient,” Art in America, vol. IXXI, no. 5 (1983), pp. 118–31.)

7. Identify the painting - 'The Snake Charmer and His Audience', c. 1879, the French artist Jean-Léon Gérôme’s depicts a naked youth holding a serpent as an older man plays the flute—charming both the snake and their audience.

1 point

Option 1

Option 2

Option 3

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10. In which of the following painting, painter constructs a scene out of his imagination, but he utilizes a highly refined and naturalistic style to suggest that he himself observed the scene. In doing so, painter suggests such nudity was a regular and public occurrence in the "East." Thus naturalizing nudity, snake-charming etc as regular part of everyday life, which is not the truth of the East.

1 point

Option 1

Option 2

Option 3

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11. In contrast to the painting of nude boy with snake-charmers, many artists created works that provide a counter-narrative to the image of the "East" as passive, licentious or decrepit. In the painter represents women fully clothed in harem scenes?

1 point

Option 1

Option 2

Option 3

Clear selection

8. Identify the painting - 'A Visit: Harem Interior, Constantinople', 1860, the French painter Henriette Browne represents women fully clothed in harem scenes.

1 point

Option 1

Option 2

Option 3

Clear selection

15. Whose work is referred by Edward Said when he says this in the conclusion of 'Introduction': "The starting-point of critical elaboration is the consciousness of what one really is, and is `knowing thyself’ as a product of the historical process to date, which has deposited in you an infinity of traces, without leaving an inventory.” The only available English translation inexplicably leaves comment at that, whereas is fact the Italian text concludes by adding, “therefore it is imperative at the outset to compile such an inventory.”

2 points

Lacan, J. The Seminar: Book XI. The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis

Antony Gramsci's Prison Notebooks

Althusser's "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses".

William Jones 'Grammar of the Persian Language'

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16. A term coined by Edward Said to describe a way of reading the texts of English literature so as to reveal their deep implications in imperial and the colonial process. Thus a reading of Jane Austen's 'Mansfield Park', for instance, can reveal the extent to which the privileged life of the English upper class is established upon the profits made from West-Indian (Caribbean) plantations, and by implication, from the exploitation of the colonized.

2 points

Orientalism

Inventory

Contrapuntal reading

Counter-dioscourse

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14. Edward Said writes in the Introduction of 'Orientalism': "I mentioned three aspects of my contemporary reality: I must explain and briefly discuss them now, so that it can be seen how I was led to a particular course of research and writing." Identify three aspects . . .

Read 'Introduction' of Orientalism for the answer

3 points

The distinction between pure and political knowledge.

The methodological question

The personal dimension

The Issue of the Othering

The disparaging of the East

The Ideological Control of the Orient

13. In Orientalist secular history paintings (narrative moments from history), Western artists portrayed disorderly and often violent battle scenes, creating a conception of an "Orient" that was rooted in incivility. The common figures and locations of Orientalist genre paintings (scenes of everyday life)—including the angry despot, licentious harem, chaotic medina, slave market, or the decadent palace—demonstrate a blend of pseudo-ethnography based on descriptions of first-hand observation and outright invention. These paintings created visions of a decaying mythic "East" inhabited by a controllable people without regard to geographic specificity. Artists operating in this vein include Jean-Léon Gérôme, Eugène Delacroix, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, and others. In the visual discourses of Orientalism, we must systematically question any claim to objectivity or authenticity. Is it true?

1 point

True

False

Clear selection

12. In contrast to the painting of nude boy with snake-charmers, many artists created works that provide a counter-narrative to the image of the "East" as passive, licentious or decrepit. In which of the following paintings painter depicts Islamic scholarship and learnedness of young muslims in the Arabic world?

1 point

Option 1

Option 2

Option 3

Clear selection

9. Identify the painting - Ottoman painter Osman Hamdi Bey depicts Islamic scholarship and learnedness in 'A Young Emir Studying', 1878.

1 point

Option 1

Option 2

Option 3

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