Orientalism

Content Warning: The source text uses terms that are now considered outdated and offensive such as “the Orient,” “Orientalism,” and “oriental.” Said uses these terms to critique these concepts, and this study guide reproduces them in that critical context.

Said describes the relationship between the Occident and Orient as “a relationship of power, of domination, of varying degrees of complex hegemony” (5). While Orientalist works may present the idea of a passive imagination about the Orient, Said believes that Western ideas, when formalized through academic study, have political ramifications. Thus, Orientalism and the relationship between the Occident and the Orient belongs to a complicated network of power.

Drawing from Antonio Gramsci’s idea of hegemony—one group’s authority or dominance over another—Said argues that this network of power constitutes not only Western literature but also other modes of knowledge production verified by academic institutions and other governmental structures. For Gramsci, hegemony speaks to the ways power is distributed and managed through cultural forms as well as more overt modes, such as militaristic force. Said applies the concept of hegemony to Orientalism to examine how cultural production is tied to the creation of public policy regarding the Orient. With this, Said asserts that writing about the Orient is part of shaping the power relations between the West and the East, fortifying the former through the latter’s subjugation.