Syllabus
1. Introduction The first class will introduce the course and explain its structure and requirements.
We will also reflect on the different understandings of such concepts as “Europe” and “the Orient” and discuss the topics of students’ essays and research projects. 2.Studying “the Orient“ before and after Orientalism This class will be devoted to the most influential critique of the Western construction of the (Muslim Middle Eastern) Orient by Edward Said from 1978 and how this critique was accepted, criticized and developed in the following decades. By way of contrast, we will look at the views of one of Said’s opponents, Samuel Huntington, expressed in a concise article from 1993 (and later in a book).
Reading: Edward Said, Orientalism, New York: Pantheon Books, 1978. (Introduction) Samuel Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations?, Foreign Affairs 72, Summer 1993, No. 3, 22-49. 3. Changing perceptions of “the Orient” and the Middle East How “Westerners” perceived “the Orient” and who were the most important “Orientals” changed over centuries.
This class will bring a selective overview of the early development of these perceptions from the time of the Ancient Greeks to Medieval chivalric romance to the early modern drama. 4. The Czechs’ Oriental Other: “The Turk” For the Czechs, like for other Central Europeans, the major Oriental Other was for centuries “the Turk”.
In this class, we will look at Central European and especially Czech images of the Turks in the early modern period, and based on the texts of Tomáš Rataj and Laura Lisy-Wagner debate two complementary approaches to this topic. Reading: Tomáš Rataj, České země ve stínu půlměsíce: Obraz Turka v raně novověké literatuře z českých zemí, Praha: Scriptorium, 2002 (English Summary: 395-403) Laura Lisy-Wagner, Islam, Christianity and the Making of Czech Identity, 1453-1683, Farnham-Burlington, VT: Ashgate 2013 (Introduction: 1-19, chapter 2: 51-80) 5. “The Orient” and the Middle East This class will explain why the Middle East has a special place in Europeans’ views of “the Orient” and in scholars’ analyses of these views.
It will also show how scholarship on one particular area can further our understanding of other regions and different temporal frames. We will learn about such concepts as “frontier Orientalism” and “nesting Orientalism” and look at how “Orientalism” affected studies of regions as diverse as China and Latin America, and how West Europeans “invented” the Balkans and Eastern Europe as well. 6.
The Enlightenment The Enlightenment meant one of the most important turning points in Europeans’ views of “the Orient” and some of the Enlightenment thinkers’ thoughts are still influential today. In this class, we will explore the differences between the Enlightenment views of the Middle East and the Far East and also the attitudes towards the Turks in various parts of Europe in the 18th century.
Reading: Larry Wolff, The Singing Turk: Ottoman Power and Operatic Emotions on the European Stage from the Siege of Vienna to the Age of Napoleon, Stanford University Press 2016 (Introduction: 1-12, chapter 5: 145-187). 7. Imperialism and discourse on “the Orient” in the long nineteenth century The 19th century is arguably the most important period in the construction of the images of “the Orient” in Europeans’ mind.
While it is impossible to do justice to Europe’s 19th-century relationship with “the Orient” in a single lecture, the class will highlight two interconnected aspects of this relationship – the reality of imperial power on the one hand, and the power of discourse on the other. 8. European men and women traveling to “the Orient” In the 19th century, the number of Europeans who traveled to various “Oriental” countries substantially increased.
They included explorers, travelers and tourists, men and women, representatives of the upper as well as the middle classes. We will look at what the introduction of mass tourism meant for Europeans’ perceptions of “the Orient”.
We will also ask whether women’s views differed from those of men and whether women showed more empathy to the local population. Reading: Billie Melman, Women’s Orients: English Women and the Middle East, 1718-1918; Sexuality, Religion and Work, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1992 (chapter 12: 276-305). 9.
Orientalist art Orientalist art belongs to the best known – and widely admired – examples of Orientalism in modern Europe. We will look at some of the famous painters whose works shaped the perceptions of “the Orient” (and especially Oriental women) in the West, as well as some less known representatives of Orientalist art in Europe, discussing the often narrow line between admiration and stereotype. 10.
Russia’s Orient Russia has been perceived in Western Europe as an Eastern, or Oriental, country. At the same time, Russia‘s eastward expansion in the 19th century brought under its rule large Central Asian regions inhabited by Muslims.
Russian scholarship on “the Orient” started to flourish in this context. The class will outline these developments and discuss two opposite views on Russian 19th-century “Orientalism”.
Readings: Kalpana Sahni, Crucifying the Orient: Russian Orientalism and the Colonization of Caucasus and Central Asia, Bangkok: White Orchid Press, 1997 (chapter 2: 33-69, or chapter 3: 71-89). David Schimmelpenninck van der Oye, Russian Orientalism: Asia in the Russian Mind from Peter the Great to the Emigration, New Heaven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010 (Introduction:1-11 and chapter 4: 60-92). 11. Central Europeans’ Oriental Others Nineteenth-century Central Europeans had little chance to create their own colonial empires, but they were interested in “the Orient” in various ways.
The class will show the commonalities and differences in the Czechs’, Hungarians’, Slovaks’ and Poles’ views of “the Orient” in the 19th century. 12. Old and new stereotypes of the Middle East in the 20th century The 20th century brought further changes in Western views of “the Orient”, such as the place occupied by the United States and Hollywood in constructing images of the Orient, the more critical approach to prejudices against (Oriental) Others and a re-surgence of the prejudices under different circumstances (oil crisis, 9/11, migration).
This class will remind us of some of these important benchmarks and will give space to students’ own experiences with the stereotypes of the Middle East and the wider “Orient”. Reading: Jack G.
Shaheen, Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People, The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 588, 2003, no. 1, 171-193. 13. Conclusion: Is Orientalism dead? The last class will be devoted to the discussion of the views on “the Orient” in contemporary academia, which is still divided in respect to the attitudes toward the concept of Orientalism, and among the broader public.
Students will present their projects and will have an opportunity to raise questions concerning the whole course.
Annotation
There are multiple ways in which the relationship between “Europe” and “the Orient” can be approached. The course will start with a discussion on the changing understanding of “Europe” and “the Orient” and some of the theoretical approaches to their interaction.
Then, Europeans’ views of the Orient since the medieval period will be briefly outlined. The main focus of the course will be on the long 19th century and on the Middle East.
Europe’s (post)Enlightenment relationship to the Middle East will be set in the framework of other non-European areas in order to reflect on the purported specificity of Europeans’ perception of the Muslim Middle East. We will explore the diversity of images of the Middle Eastern “Other” that existed across Europe.
