220038 Orientalism (S) (WiSe 2011/2012)

´Orientalism´ is one of the most important and influential theoretical paradigm in postcolonial studies which has fundamentally challenged and re-shaped the way both scholars and laymen thought and studied about the influence of Western (especially European) colonial influence in shaping the history of the colonised societies. A central idea of Orientalism is that Western knowledge about the East is not generated from facts or reality, but from preconceived archetypes that envision all "Eastern" societies as fundamentally similar to one another, and fundamentally dissimilar to "Western" societies. This discourse establishes "the East" as antithetical to "the West". This course intends to introduce and discuss the concept of ´Orientalism´ as it is vogue in contemporary scholarship.

The Seminar will be conducted in English. (However, fluency in spoken English will not be a necessary requirement to attend the course).

Bibliography

1. Edward Said, Orientalism (New York: Vintage, 1978).

2. Sheldon Pollock, "Deep Orientalism? Notes on Sanskrit and Power Beyond the Raj," in Orientalism and the Postcolonial Predicament: Perspectives on South Asia, ed. Carol A. Breckenridge and Peter van der Veer (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993), pp. 76-133"