东方主义

This article examines the way that Eastern and Western Cultures are represented in the TV show Game of Thrones (2007-2019), through the lens of Edward Said's work on Orientalism. Although Game of Thrones is a fantasy TV show that takes place in fictional continents of Westeros and Essos, it has created a clear distinction between the Civilized West and the Exotic East. In many ways, this dichotomy reflects the Orientalist framework that Said identifies in his book Orientalism. The author of this article will argue that the East is portrayed by Game of Thrones as an Exotic, Mysterious and Often Dangerous Other, as opposed to the Western ideals of Order, Power and Morality. Through an examination of the representation of Essos and specifically Daenerys Targaryen's interaction with the Dothraki and other Eastern cultures, the article will critically evaluate how the show reinforces traditional Orientalist tropes, while at the same time subverts them through acts of resistance and complexities. Overall, the author of this article will conclude that Game of Thrones uses the Orientalist framework to both reflect colonial histories, and to prompt viewers to consider what it means to be culturally imperialistic, to have power and to create and maintain one's identity in today's world.

This article reviews orientalists’ misrepresentations regarding the Orient and Islam. Many Western scholars have touched on the differences between Westerners and Arab and Muslim Orientals. Orientalists have also drawn analogies between Christianity and Islam. In his book Orientalism, Said depicted the negative attitude of some orientalists’ texts towards Islam and the Orient. However, there are also literary works about the Orient in Western culture that employ objective criteria. The vision of Islam is analysed according to the orientalists whose names are mentioned in the book of Orientalism. However, other texts present greater equanimity. That vision is still present nowadays in the Western mindset towards the Middle Eastern situation. Said's approaches explain the issue brilliantly, and could provide some clues for solutions.

Few works in the humanities have wielded the influence of Edward Said’s (1935–2003) Orientalism: Western perceptions of the East (1978) within the Turkish academic landscape. The first Turkish translation of Orientalism was published in 1982 by Pınar, an Islamist publishing house devoid of scholarly pedigree. While Said attributes his motivation for writing the book to his sense of alienation as a Palestinian exile in America and the lack of recognition he experienced as an Arab, his methodology and critical approach bear the hallmarks of an academic field. Said’s work is a deconstruction of the academic field of oriental studies. According to Bourdieu, the field of origin alone cannot fully determine the meaning and function of foreign works; the receiving field is equally crucial. The significance and impact of the work in its original field are often unclear, and the process of transfer unfolds through different mechanisms. This transfer process involves multiple variables, including the selection of a title for publication, choice of the translator, labeling and classification, selection of publication series, and the translator’s influence. Within this framework, this paper aims to uncover ideological, cultural, and historical factors that contributed to Said’s Orientalism ’s influence on Turkish political, intellectual, and academic fields.

During the colonial period, many literary works helped the empire create a narrative about the Orient. However, few works describe the West from the perspective of the East. The Travels of Mirza Abu Taleb Khan is one such travelogue, offering a unique view of Europe through the eyes of an Eastern traveler. This paper examines Taleb Khan’s observations and opinions about Europeans and their culture. Using Edward Said’s concept of Orientalism as a framework, the paper argues that Taleb’s travelogue presents an Eastern discourse that challenges Said’s idea of Orientalism. This study contributes to a deeper understanding of cross-cultural perspectives and challenges traditional narratives about East-West relations. It highlights the importance of diverse viewpoints in shaping historical and literary discourses.

This article examines the impact of Edward Said’s concept of Orientalism on the contemporary geopolitical landscape. The authors argue that while the critique of Orientalism has significantly influenced academic discourse and domestic policies in Western countries, particularly the United States, it has not led to fundamental changes in global geopolitical strategy. The paper focuses on two key aspects: the natural connection between knowledge and power, which cannot be altered by anti-colonial declarations, and the shift of colonial discourse to new regions, specifically non-Western Europe. The authors posit that the strength of a modern state lies in its ability to dynamically bifurcate its image into internal and external faces, presenting different aspects to its society and foreign partners. Using the United States as a case study, the article demonstrates how internal anti-colonial discourse coexists with an unchanging foreign policy strategy of global dominance. The authors criticize the illusions about the possibility of changing the fundamental principles of US foreign policy, which has remained consistent since 1941. The paper emphasizes the continuation of a strategy aimed at fostering global dependence on the West, despite anti-colonial rhetoric. The article explores the complex interplay between domestic movements for social justice and decolonization, and the pragmatic realities of international relations. It argues that the deconstruction of Orientalism, while challenging the legitimacy of historical colonial practices, has not transformed the core geopolitical interests of Western states.The authors contend that the apparent dichotomy between internal anti-colonial discourse and external policy reflects both the complexity and strength of states like the US, where domestic and foreign policies can be shaped by different institutional and ideological forces. The paper also discusses the expansion of the concept of liberal democracy as an export product to regions deemed lacking in popular sovereignty.In conclusion, the article suggests that the critique of Orientalism, despite its academic and cultural impact, has been effectively neutralized in geopolitical practice. This is achieved through a shift in focus to regions not traditionally considered part of the «old» Western colonies, allowing for the implementation of economic partnership policies without the moral self-flagellation associated with charges of Orientalism. The paper ultimately argues that renaming reality does not change its underlying structure, and that the postmodern belief in the power of language to transform geopolitical realities is akin to magical thinking. It concludes that the critique of Orientalism has not fundamentally altered the eternal principles and interests guiding global geopolitical strategies.

The study aimed to examine the development of literary criticism throughout its history from structuralism to postmodernism, using Edward Said's criticism of Orientalism as a case study. A discourse-grounded analysis approach was used to analyze critical texts and articles related to this development. The results showed, according to Said, that the traditional Western depiction of the East is biased and based on power relations, which influenced postcolonial philosophy and the literary canon (Smith, 2018). Said sought to expose biases in Western literature’s depiction of the East (Jones, 2016). His writings have sparked debate about the role of the critic in shaping literary discourse, shifting critical focus toward questions of power, representation, and identity, and increasing opportunities for underrepresented groups to have their voices heard (Brown & Johnson, 2019). Said's critique of Orientalism has influenced contemporary literary criticism, opening the door to a more diverse and comprehensive literary study (Garcia & Lee, 2020).

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This paper re-embeds Edward Said’s works as activist interventions in the twentieth-century Palestinian struggle for self-determination, expressed allegorically and aslant via his critique of nineteenth-century Orientalism. It also challenges the impulse to anthologise Orientalism, displacing it in favour of “Zionism from the Standpoint of its Victims.” In it, Orientalism, as Said conceives it, becomes a deconstructive tool to write back to Zionism, the American liberal consensus, and Arab nationalism.

My heart aches to see you fight for chairs; Only poor masses are crushed with open arms by bears. I saw many deaths in houses and houses in deaths, But thou made me unable to breathe. We are drowning up to the neck in our blood; No one is there to come, see and judge masses smeared with mud Never ever tell the truth to live a life, Dumb, deaf, and blind can live here. (Farman Ullah) Informed by the close reading of the novel Twilight in Delhi (1940) by Ahmed Ali during and under the impact of colonization from the perspectives of sociopolitical aspects of the extraordinary situation that has been faced by common people through ordinary words. The present study aims to examine the novel Twilight in Delhi, how the "“Self”" and the "“Other”" interact within the historical backdrop of British colonialism and the "massacre and destruction in Delhi in 1857" (Yahya: 2013) as it is portrayed in the book Twilight in Delhi. It contends that prejudice, an imbalance of power, and oppression characterize this relationship. The research looks at the negative effects of this uneven dynamic, such as violence, theft, and cultural fusion. The novel's author gives the colonized Indians a voice by denouncing British colonial power and urging resistance to it. The conclusion emphasizes the necessity to confront and end colonial dominance while highlighting the harmful impacts of the "“Self”" and "“Other”" connection.

Said’s orientalism theory identifies what he calls the false picture of the Orient or the East produced by western scholars, historians, cultural and legal theorists, and colonial rulers, given the West’s primary goal of controlling everything in the East. Therefore, Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner has a historic relevance to the post-September events, which some critics see as if Hosseini, as an Afghan writer, is trying to ease the tight seclusion of Afghan immigrants in America. Hosseini is demanding to show a new vision of his country and change Western feelings towards Afghanistan from hatred to sympathy. The Kite Runner introduces itself as a novel that challenges the simplistic opposition between the West and the Middle East by building a bridge of understanding to the other culture, explaining to the West and the rest of the world that Afghanistan is more than rockets and gunshots in relation to Said’s Orientalism. Since Afghanistan is stereotyped as a war zone neglecting its citizens, history, and traditions, Khaled Hosseini comes to change these wrong perceptions, in which this research discusses this matter in detail shedding light on the historical background of Afghanistan’s refugee crisis. He paints a vivid image of refugees and the obstacles they face as they escape to a new country, in relation to the actions of the novel, and a postcolonial reading to analyze the other.

The article analyzes the paratextual activity of Witold Kalinowski, the author of the first Polish translation of Edward Said’s Orientalism (1991), paying special attention to his polemical remarks and their relation to the vision of scientific, theoretical discourse. The translator does not strive for invisibility. On the contrary, he uses footnotes and brackets inserted in the main text to comment on different aspects of Said’s work. He signals problems ensuing from the differences between languages and cultures, explains the nature of linguistic difficulties and justifies his own solutions. He also takes on the role of editor and commentator, explaining Said’s allusions, supplementing the discussion with additional information, anticipating readers’ doubts about certain facts that might sound suspicious, and even inserting bracketed additions and clarifications which suggest that the original is unclear or imprecise. Finally, Kalinowski overtly expresses his polemical attitude: he provides certain parts of Said’s discussion with sic! annotation (thus suggesting that the author is wrong) and adds footnotes where he argues with what he sees as the author’s dubious and far-fetched interpretations. The Translator’s Note gives certain insight into the nature of the disagreement between the author and the translator. Explaining why Orientalism is a difficult book to translate, Kalinowski enumerates its troubling features: the combination of different types of discourse and the large number of polemical accents, due to which the book is not fully scientific. The moment of the book’s publication might suggest that such a qualification could have been a result of the then scarce presence of poststructuralist thought and cultural studies in the Polish humanities. However, the analysis of Witold Kalinowski’s articles as well as his doctoral thesis from the 1980s shows both his awareness of the theoretical currents that influenced Orientalism and his critical attitude towards Marxist thought. It is the aversion to the Marxist-inspired interpretations – both Kalinowski’s personal methodological conviction and a widespread attitude in the early post-communist Poland – that seems to be the reason of the clash in the first Polish translation of Said’s work.

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This article examines the portrayal of Hua Mulan in the 2020 film adaptations produced in the USA and China through the lens of Edward Said’s Orientalism, assessing the cultural and political implications of these representations. The study begins with a historical overview of Hua Mulan’s adaptations, focusing on how the 2020 films reflect cultural stereotypes, gender dynamics, and the tension between individualistic and collective values. By comparing these productions, it highlights the perpetuation of Western stereotypes about Asian cultures and contrasts them with China’s narrative strategies. Furthermore, the article emphasizes the importance of analyzing cultural representations in cinema as a tool for understanding broader political and social dynamics. It argues that Said’s framework remains relevant for examining how the “Other” is depicted in contemporary films, and proposes new insights into the political power of cinema in shaping public perceptions. This discussion contributes to the existing debates on Orientalism, offering a nuanced critique of cultural representation and its role in reinforcing or challenging stereotypes.

To explore the way in which colonial discourse still influences power relations, representation, and identity in a postcolonial situation, this paper analyzes the work of Ousmane Sembène’s Black Girl (La Noire de…, 1966) based on the theoretical background of Edward Said Orientalism. Despite the fact that the political autonomy was the formalization of the colonial rule, the movie shows that colonial subjection continues to exist in the form of daily habits, language, and cultural subordinations. It is the story of a young Senegalese woman Diouana who moves to France where she hopes to find an economic stability and social mobility, but instead becomes racialized and exploited sexually and psychologically in a French family home. This paper applies a qualitative analysis design by conducting a systematic analysis of verbatim dialogues of the original film script translated into English to facilitate analysis. The coded conversations were named into themes to determine common themes in relation to the Western superiority, colonial power, racial othering, objectification, silencing, loss of identity, and resistance in NVivo. The results show that the marginalization that Diouana undergoes is not a personal phenomenon but a structural effect of Orientalist ideology that would turn the African subject into an inferior being of the passive and having a value only through the work. The analysis also shows how language, commands, and silences are all means of domination, which strengthens colonial power even in a post-independence environment. Finally, the paper suggests that Black Girl reveals the long-term effects of the colonial system by showing how the roles of Orientalist images in the creation of social relations and subjectivity are still valid. The tragic destiny of Diouana allows Sembène to criticize the postcolonial illusion of equality and presupposes the immediate necessity to revisit Western discourses that are silent and inhuman to the formerly colonized nations.

Abstract: The Orientalist engagement of William Beckford’s Vathek and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein has already been considered within the same theoretical framework proposed by Edward Said. However, this study aims at deconstructing the epistemic foundation of Orientalism in both works. The creation of Vathek is not simply a conceptualization of a stereotypical figure that replicates typical Orientalized characters. He is rather the product of a fantastic quest that is epistemologically conditioned by overreaching disastrous knowledge. Vathek’s weird world is engineered within an epistemic framework whose discursive foundation can be tracked down in Orientalism. Likewise, the subjection of Victor Frankenstein to Orientalist practices whets his appetite for the type of experimentation whose ambiance is conjured up from the spirit of Orientalized tales like the Nights. Orientalism functions thus as an episteme filtering any ‘dispirited’ scientific objectives and transforming them into distorted fantasies. All in all, the realization of such fantasies and deviant epistemic quests, in both novels, eventually ends up in crafting a deformed artefact that echoes Orientalism itself in the sense that they are both deviant praxis drawn upon eccentric discourse and assumptions. Keywords:William Beckford, Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, Vathek, Orientalism

In this article, I investigate Japanomania – the European and American fascination with Japan from the 1860s to the 1910s – focusing on how Western conceptions of time determined perceptions of Japanese culture. Drawing on Edward Said’s Orientalism and Stuart Hall’s conception of ‘the West’ as a historical construct, I claim that Western understandings of time were instrumental in disseminating Orientalism, framing the East as exotic, static, and timeless. The study centres on Japanomania in turn-of-the-century Warsaw, including the reception of Japanese exhibitions and theatre performances, showing that the modern concept of time was a crucial tool of Orientalism. Specifically, the idea of ‘universal’ time allowed for comparisons between cultures, positioning non-Western societies as inferior and preserving Western hierarchies and narratives. The article demonstrates how Western ideological frameworks influenced Polish cultural identities and shaped local fantasies about Japan and the Orient.

This study offers a critical reassessment of Edward Said’s Orientalism by examining William Shakespeare’s Othello and Antony and Cleopatra. It challenges Said’s assertion that early modern Western representations of the East uniformly served to construct the Orient as irrational, inferior, and uncultured in contrast to a rational and superior Occident. Instead, this study argues that such a binary does not adequately account for England’s pre-colonial encounter with the powerful Ottoman Empire. During this period, English portrayals of the East were marked more by anxiety, fascination, and perceived vulnerability than by imperial dominance. In Othello, the protagonist’s racial and cultural ambiguity reflects English fears of “turning Turk”—the conversion to Islam and betrayal of Christian identity. In Antony and Cleopatra, Cleopatra embodies the destabilizing allure of the East, threatening Roman masculinity and imperial order. Antony’s symbolic “going native” and feminization express contemporary fears of cultural absorption. Moreover, Cleopatra subverts Orientalist stereotypes through her strategic manipulation of exoticism, overturning patriarchal hierarchies. By contextualizing both plays within early modern geopolitical tensions, this study argues for a more complex reading of Shakespeare’s representations of the East—one informed by ambivalence, awe, and political unease rather than simplistic notions of Western superiority.

This article explores Teju Cole's Open City (2011) as a profound critique of neo-Orientalist discourses in the post-9/11 era, focusing on Farouq, an Arab-Muslim intellectual in Brussels. Grounded in Edward Said's Orientalism and Hamid Dabashi's neo-Orientalism, the analysis reveals how Farouq resists Western pressures to assimilate or enact commodified versions of his identity, challenging the persistent demand for "oriental fantasy" narratives. The novel situates Farouq's personal struggles within geopolitical tensions, notably the Israel-Palestine conflict, which characters frame as a defining contemporary issue. This perspective counters neo-Orientalist assertions that attribute Middle Eastern instability to inherent cultural flaws, instead critiquing Western imperialism and media distortions. The study contrasts Farouq's revolutionary consciousness with Dr. Maillotte's liberal dismissal of his grievances, exposing subtle neo-Orientalist mechanisms that mask structural inequities under a veneer of openness. Through its dialogic structure and reflective narrator, Julius, Open City fosters authentic intercultural exchange, disrupting monolithic portrayals of Muslim identities. The article argues that Cole's narrative not only contests reductive stereotypes but also positions literature as a vital medium for advocating equitable identity representations in a globalized world. By centering Farouq's intellectual agency and experiences, the study contributes significantly to understanding identity politics and representation in postcolonial literature, underscoring the enduring relevance of Said's critique in contemporary global discourses.

In the recent years, the field of Colonial Middle East has seen a great revision. Taking outset from Edward Said’s seminal work on ‘Orientalism’, this paper aims to explore the sexual – or rather the homoerotic – implications of this scholarly debate. By examining ethnographic photography depicting supposedly ‘Oriental’ men, I argue that the portrayals of these models – which are characterised by a feminine and highly sexualised modelling – emphasise the colonial implications of the ‘Westernised’ perspective on ‘the Orient’. The feminine portrayal of the ‘Oriental’ models mirrors the conception of a subaltern ‘Orient’ from the perspectives of the European consumers.

Said stated that Orientalism is the domination of the West over the East. Orientalism emerged after many trips made by European countries, causing the Orient or East to be exploited by the West. One form of exploitation is present in the film industry, as presented by the animation Isle of Dogs (2018) by Wes Anderson. This research uses Boggs and Petrie's (2018) cinematography theory to look at the symbols presented through places and characters in the film. Stuart Hall's representation theory (1997) is used to interpret symbols which are representations of Japanese culture. This research shows dichotomies used in the film, such as Japanese and English language, humans, and animals (dogs), modernity and traditional, active American students and passive Japanese students as symbol or representation of West and East which is an element of orientalism. The result of this research shows that this film has an attempt to destroy the idea of orientalism, but the representation of Japan presented in this film confirms the idea of orientalism itself. Hence, it can be said that this film failed to deconstruct the orientalism.

This conceptual paper investigates how leading Western museums—including the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Art Institute of Chicago—reinterpret and display Asian ceramic heritage in the context of postcolonial critique. Framed by Edward Said’s Orientalism, visual culture theory, and postcolonial museology, the study examines the visual and narrative strategies employed by these institutions to construct meanings around Asian ceramic objects. It identifies three key constructs—museum display strategy, Orientalist narrative legacy, and postcolonial curatorial approach—as independent variables influencing how Asian ceramic visual culture is reframed in contemporary exhibitions. A conceptual framework is developed to critically analyze the visual politics of these displays and their implications for heritage interpretation, decolonial practice, and cultural representation. By drawing on illustrative mini-case analyses, the paper demonstrates how curatorial choices can either reinforce or resist historical power imbalances embedded in museological traditions. The study contributes to the advancement of theoretical discourse in critical heritage studies and offers actionable insights for curators seeking to challenge inherited colonial display paradigms.

This study examines the complex interplay between Orientalist discourse and the emergence of Indian nationalist identity during colonial rule. Drawing on Edward Said’s “Orientalism” (1978) as the theoretical foundation, the research highlights how colonial constructions of India as mystical, irrational, and socially stagnant were employed to justify imperial authority. At the same time, these categories provided the framework against which Indian intellectuals and nationalist leaders reinterpreted their cultural heritage and articulated distinct visions of nationhood. Using a qualitative and interpretive approach, the study analyzes colonial writings alongside the responses of reformist, spiritual, and critical thinkers such as Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Dayanand Saraswati, Swami Vivekananda, Aurobindo Ghosh, Mahatma Gandhi, and Rabindranath Tagore. Their engagements with Orientalism—ranging from resistance to strategic appropriation demonstrate that Indian nationalism was shaped through both opposition to and selective use of colonial representations. The findings reveal that Indian nationalism emerged as a counter-hegemonic project while also being partly indebted to Orientalist categories. The study concludes that Orientalism simultaneously constrained and enabled indigenous identity formation, creating a dialectical process that shaped nationalist consciousness. Its contemporary relevance is underscored by the persistence of neo-Orientalist stereotypes in global media and policy discourses.

: This article explores how Yussef El Guindi’s Back of the Throat (2005) illustrates the plight of Arab Americans due to the interplay of Islamophobia, Orientalism, and nationalism, which in turn results in various forms of prejudice and racism against Arab Americans in the United States. The primary goal is to explore how Orientalist tropes shaped the Islamophobic and nationalist sentiments targeting Arab Americans, which steer them into perennial wretchedness by delineating an unrealistic portrayal of their culture and religion. In other words, El Guindi uses Khaled not only as a character but also as a useful critical tool to explore how the US government treats Arab Americans by drawing attention to the harsh realities faced by many people like Khaled. This article will be organized into two sections: the first will explore postcolonial theory, drawing on Edward Said’s insights on Orientalism, while the second will analyze the play through this theoretical lens.

The Palestinian-Israeli conflict is a complex and protracted geopolitical issue, in which Israel's colonial practices against Palestine continue until today. The documentary film No Other Land directly records the destruction of Palestinian villages in Masafer Yatta as well as forms of resistance by the local community. The main issue of this research is the need to reveal how the film No Other Land presents resistance and counter-narratives to the dominance of Orientalist representations. This research aims to show that No Other Land is not only a documentation of reality, but also a medium that affirms the agency, dignity, and identity of the Palestinian people. This study uses Edward Said's framework of Orientalism to analyze how the film depicts power relations, colonial practices, and counter-narratives born out of Palestinian resistance. Using a qualitative descriptive approach, data were collected through observation of scenes, dialogues, and visuals in the film, then categorized into verbal, symbolic, and historical forms of resistance. The study's results identified 21 instances of resistance, including 10 verbal, 8 symbolic, and 3 historical, as well as 7 instances of counter-narratives that serve to deconstruct the Orientalist discourse portraying Palestine as weak and passive. These findings show that No Other Land is not merely a documentation of suffering, but also a political medium that reclaims the representation of Palestine in the eyes of the world. Thus, documentary films can be understood as a space for cultural resistance that affirms the identity, dignity, and rights of colonized peoples.

Abstract It is common knowledge that the discourse on Orientalism developed by Edward Said (1978) does not include the perception of the Asiatic Other in German-speaking countries. As a result, we are left with a series of unanswered questions related to the importance of the construction of Asiatic imagery in this part of Europe. German Orientalism – declined in the plural by Kontje (2004), because of its complexity – has thus been the focus of various investigative attempts and approaches that study its characteristics in light of the peculiarities of the German-speaking universe, characterised by the presence of the German Empire and the Habsburg Empire. In more recent times, several studies have explored the literary representation of the relationships between German-speaking countries and the East, drawing on the concepts of transculturality and cultural hybridity (Welsch 1992; Shen/Rosenstock 2014; Zhang 2017). These studies provide a methodological framework suited to the analysis of literary works that portray the relation between East and West in ways that seek to transcend their traditional dichotomy, interpreting it instead through the lens of complementary elements within a global culture. In this paper, the developmental stages of German Orientalism are briefly reviewed with regard to the image of China and Japan in German-language literature. If at the end of the 19th century German Orientalism was influenced by the concrete or only vague colonial ambitions of the German and Habsburg empires, the 20th century witnessed the process of its deconstruction thanks to the work of authors who made the imaginative projection of the Asian Other an occasion for ironic and irreverent reflection. An analysis of the same historical period in light of the concept of transculturality is also recalled and extended to more recent literature in which the representation of the East is often reinterpreted through a hybrid and hybridising dimension that seeks to move beyond the dichotomous division between West and East in favour of mutual influence. The study concludes with a proposed analysis of the works of Adolf Muschg and Yōko Tawada – two authors who, despite their significant differences, depict a reality characterised by metamorphosis and reciprocal contamination, yet one that remains open to reflections still connected to the notion of colonial and postcolonial power relations.

The discourse on contemporary Islamic studies is undergoing an important paradigm shift, in which Eurocentric narratives that have dominated the field for centuries are being challenged and reconstructed. This process of decolonizing knowledge involves not only a critique of Edward Said's classical orientalism but also an active effort to restore subjectivity and agency to Muslim communities in interpreting and developing their own religious traditions. In this context, Nash's work provides a valuable perspective on how religious groups in the Muslim world have not simply been passive objects of Western influence, but also active agents who respond to, adapt, and even utilize orientalist discourse for their benefit. Modernism in Muslim-majority regions such as Iran and South Asia has different characteristics from Western narratives of modernity. The Mahdi movements studied by Nash show how modernity is interpreted and negotiated differently in local contexts, creating a unique synthesis between religious tradition and the demands of modern times. In addition, decolonization efforts in contemporary Islamic studies seek to uncover and appreciate these varied experiences of modernity, rejecting the idea that there is only one single path to progress.

The paper studies a very significant timeline in Moroccan history: French and Spanish protectorates (1912-1956) to analyze the literary frequencies and resistance through the post-colonial theories of Edward Said in Orientalism (1978) and Cultural Imperialism (1993). The paper adopts a qualitative analytical method to extract the literary texts and works during and post-colonial era. The study investigates how the literary figure of Morocco reflects the ‘orient,’ ‘alienation,’ ‘cultural and psychological trauma,’ ‘hybridity,’ ‘resistance,’ and ‘cultural imperialism.’ The significant findings reveal that during the colonial period (1912-1956), the authors have strongly tried to find their pre-colonial traditions of Moroccan Islamic and Arabic influences. The French dominance, French language, secular education system, western-styled clothing, and pop music provoke the authors to reconceptualize the indigenous Moroccan socioeconomic history, which leads to the ultimate Moroccan resistance and independence. However, the post-colonial literary tendency concerns the vulnerability of Morocco to neocolonialism in the digital era. As the literary figures are predisposed to discuss Western approaches to social and economic structures in Moroccan novels, essays, and poetry. This post-colonial tendency seamlessly portrays Edward Said’s representation of ‘the Occident’ and ‘the Orient.’ Overall, the cultural imperialism exposes the double standards of Moroccan writers in literature in the post-colonial period, which reveals the critical explanation of ‘biased history.’ Substantially, the study offers profound insights into Moroccan literary frequencies during and post-colonial times. And the study contributes to postcolonial studies by extending Said’s framework to North African literature, exposing insights into the literary mechanisms of resistance and identity reconstruction during the postcolonial period. 

One Thousand and One Nights (Arabian Nights) is one of the most popular collections of stories published in the early eighteenth century. The story of “Aladdin and The Wonderful Lamp” became especially popular following the French Orientalist Antoine Gallard’s translation. The story has been adapted many times throughout the years, and the most famous of these adaptations is Disney’s Aladdin (1992). However, despite its success and popularity, the film has received harsh criticism for its portrayal of Middle Eastern people, which has inspired several studies of its use of Orientalism. Following the theoretical approach of Edward Said’s Orientalism, this article discusses how Middle Eastern people are represented in Aladdin and explores some of the Orientalist stereotypes that are present in the film. This study uses two methods: first, a semiotic analysis of Orientalist signs in the movie; and second, a critical discourse analysis (CDA) of the narration and dialogue. This study shows how Aladdin uses Orientalist narratives that depict Middle Eastern people as violent, greedy, or barbaric, and presents the Middle East as an exotic place.

This article applies the postcolonial criticism frameworks of Edward Said and Gayatri Spivak to examine five representative novels by Mo Yan: The Herbivorous Family, Red Sorghum Clan, Sandalwood Death, Big Breasts and Wide Hips, and Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out. The analysis focuses on how Mo Yan’s narratives construct Eastern images, grotesque aesthetics, and female images under the influence of postcolonial discourse. The findings reveal that his depictions of violence, the human body, and patriarchal oppression simultaneously reflect a complex negotiation with Western cultural hegemony and an inheritance of traditional Chinese narrative paradigms. By situating Mo Yan’s literary strategies within broader postcolonial debates, this study demonstrates the multidimensional nature of postcolonial discourse in contemporary Chinese literature. Moreover, it highlights how these works may inform comparative approaches to Vietnamese literature particularly regarding issues of national identity, gender, and the reception of global literary discourses.

ABSTRACT The representation of Islamic societies in life narratives by Western voyagers has long been a subject of criticism for their allegedly prejudiced and demeaning portrayal. These narratives are often accused of perpetuating Orientalist discourses and reinforcing Islamophobia. This article problematizes such myopic perspectives by demonstrating how a western-produced travelogue can move beyond hackneyed cultural clichés on the Orient and present an Eastern culture in its opulence. We examine Jürgen Wasim Frembgen’s Nocturnal Music in the Land of the Sufis: The Unheard Pakistan (Frembgen, 2012), which documents the German writer’s mystical journeys into the musical worlds of Pakistan. Drawing upon Bhabha’s concepts of mimicry and hybridity as well as Said’s theory of Orientalism, we argue that the book contests prevailing discourses on western travelogues as apparatuses to reinforce Islamophobia and Orientalism, and instead portrays the country as a dream land that is enriched with olfactory, visual, and auditory appeals.

The prevailing sentiment is that colonialism is a thing of the past. However, the Western portrayal of the East is one of the shackles that still holds postcolonial societies. A diverse number of Orientalist writings and language perpetuate a rigid image of the people of the East as primitive, prone to tradition, and uncivilized. Such a representation tends to be perceived as true if it is told repeatedly, consistently, and continuously. This research attempted to provide insight into how imperialism operates in current discourses, how colonial power structures persist, and how these structures can be deconstructed, by presenting a re-examination of the presence of Orientalism in Ben Okri's short story, “Belonging” (2009), not as a careless reiteration of Western dominance, but as a type of Eastern resistance. This critical exploration was based on Edward Said's Orientalism theory and Homi Bhabha's Stereotype and Mimicry theory, and employed descriptive qualitative and deconstructive reading methods to re-evaluate the use of Orientalist stereotypes in the short story. The findings showed that the Orientalist view and stereotypes are unstable, creating a space for Eastern resistance against Western colonial discourse. This article thus sheds light on how Western perspectives on Eastern societies are embedded in literary works and at the same time discloses a possibility of resistance against Western stereotypes.

“The Man from Mars,” a short story by Margaret Atwood, is a potent critique of Westerners’ common misconceptions and stereotypes about Asians that prompt the exclusion of the Asian hero from Canadian society. Atwood intentionally challenges the deeply ingrained prejudices against individuals from Eastern cultures in Western epistemes by enveloping the unnamed hero in mystery. Drawing on Edward Said’s Orientalism, the study debunks recurrent stereotypes concerning the hero’s “peculiarities” by analyzing their external triggers and highlighting their universal nature. It promotes a deeper comprehension of the intricate interplays between personal experiences, cultural adaptations, and psychological variables.

Arab-American playwright Betty Shamieh emerged on the contemporary theatre scene in the early 2000s with an artistic voice and cultural perspective that broke new ground on the American stage. Her early plays were personal stories of family that studied the immigrant experience through the eyes of exclusively Arab-American characters. Shamieh’s writing shifted after the events of 9/11 and resulted in her writing “The Black Eyed”, a play that addresses the Middle East conflict through the stories of four Arab women. Shamieh’s play adjusts the lens through which audiences witness the Arab-American experience and confront their Orientalist tendencies. Her cultural investigation rides a razor’s edge of Orientalism; she positions herself as both “us” and “them” within the discourse as she flips the hegemonic power structure. In this essay I use a close reading informed by Edward Said’s theories to examine the ways in which Shamieh inverts and subverts a gendered use of Orientalism in “The Black Eyed’s” themes and characters, using established tropes like the harem, houris, martyrs, violence, and seduction to fuel her project.

Edward Said holds that Orientalism essentially explains the power relation between the West and the East in which the former controls the latter with hegemony. Hollywood films, the symbol of American culture, play an indispensable role in promoting American cultural values and ideologies, but the images of non-western countries are often distorted in them. Thus gradually, the East is marginalized and the gap between the image of the East and the West becomes difficult to bridge. This paper is a study of the cultural hegemony infiltrated in Kung Fu Panda which is permeated with both Chinese and American cultural elements.

This paper aims to examine the short story Tarom by Budi Darma with theoretical knife of orientalism. The method in this study uses descriptive qualitative. The data collection technique uses the close-reading method, while the analysis technique uses the dialectical method. Edward Said’s Orientalism as a formal object and Budi Darma’s short story Tarom published by Kompas newspaper is a material object. The results of study suggest that, first, there is a polarization of ‘West’ and ‘East’ which is represented by the characters in the short story. The West in this case is depicted Germany and the East shown is Japan. Second, it does not only describe the polarization of the West and the East, but also shows the discourse of resistance. Through the depiction of the Tarom character, this short story shows the existence of a Western body with Easten thoughts. Thus, the short story Tarom displays a narrative of reversal of the Orientalism discourse.