ISBN:
978-0-231-18762-6
,
978-0-231-54738-3 / (eBook)
Language:
English
Pages:
X, 380 Seiten
Keywords:
Orientalismus Kritik
;
Orient-Bild
;
Erkenntnistheorie
;
Kulturwissenschaft
;
Wissenschaftstheorie
;
Methodologie
;
Said, Edward W.
Abstract:
Since Edward Said`s foundational work, Orientalism has been singled out for critique as the quintessential example of Western intellectuals` collaboration with oppression. Controversies over the imbrications of knowledge and power and the complicity of Orientalism in the larger project of colonialism have been waged among generations of scholars. But has Orientalism come to stand in for all of the sins of European modernity, at the cost of neglecting the complicity of the rest of the academic disciplines?In this landmark theoretical investigation, Wael B. Hallaq reevaluates and deepens the critique of Orientalism in order to deploy it for rethinking the foundations of the modern project. Refusing to isolate or scapegoat Orientalism, Restating Orientalism extends the critique to other fields, from law, philosophy, and scientific inquiry to core ideas of academic thought such as sovereignty and the self. Hallaq traces their involvement in colonialism, mass annihilation, and systematic destruction of the natural world, interrogating and historicizing the set of causes that permitted modernity to wed knowledge to power. Restating Orientalism offers a bold rethinking of the theory of the author, the concept of sovereignty, and the place of the secular Western self in the modern project, reopening the problem of power and knowledge to an ethical critique and ultimately theorizing an exit from modernity`s predicaments. A remarkably ambitious attempt to overturn the foundations of a wide range of academic disciplines while also drawing on the best they have to offer, Restating Orientalism exposes the depth of academia`s lethal complicity in modern forms of capitalism, colonialism, and hegemonic power.Wael B. Hallaq takes critique of Orientalism as a point of departure for rethinking the modern project. A remarkably ambitious attempt to overturn the foundations of a wide range of academic disciplines, Restating Orientalism exposes the depth of academia's lethal complicity in modern forms of capitalism, colonialism, and hegemonic powerIntro -- Table of Contents -- Preface and Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1. Putting Orientalism in Its Place -- 2. Knowledge, Power, and Colonial Sovereignty -- 3. The Subversive Author -- 4. Epistemic Sovereignty and Structural Genocide -- 5. Refashioning Orientalism, Refashioning the Subject -- Notes -- IndexIntroduction -- Putting Orientalism in its place -- Knowledge, power, and colonial sovereignty -- The subversive author -- Epistemic sovereignty and structural genocide -- Refashioning Orientalism, refashioning the subject"Edward Said's Orientalism not only inaugurated a new and highly controversial arena of discourse but also set the terms of debate around knowledge, power, and imperialism since 1978, when the book first appeared. The substance of discussions remains extensively political, limited to the so-called problem of knowledge and power and the complicity of Orientalism in the larger project of colonialism. One of the many critiques was that Said was too sweeping in his condemnation of Orientalists, leaving no analytical space for distinguishing degrees of difference between one scholar and another. Thus any scholar who depicts Islam negatively or too positively is an Orientalist, the former a bigot of some sort and the latter an exoticizer. Restating Orientalism offers an alternative account that accepts and transcends political thought and positioning while avoiding the totalization of authorial condemnation in Said's narrative. Hallaq reopens the problem of power and knowledge to an ethical critique, asking such questions as: What makes certain forms of knowledge useful to power, and what kind of cultural configurations exist in the world in which knowledge and power have virtually no relationship with each other? Refusing to isolate or scapegoat Orientalism, the book extends the critique to other academic fields, tracing their involvement in colonialism and genocide to a seventeenth- and eighteenth- century structure of thought whose most salient characteristic was a type of domination anchored in sovereignty over life and death. Orientalism, Hallaq argues, is no more an exception to liberal and modern forms of knowledge than genocide in general was an exception in modernity, but rather is the truest representation of modern sovereign capabilities"
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