Orientalism

During the Allied Occupation of Japan, Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP) Douglas MacArthur set forth on a mission to Americanize Japan. One way SCAP decided this could be done was by utilizing forms of media that were already popular in Japan, particularly the radio…

This dissertation examines the cultural and diplomatic clashes that happened in the 17th century between the Ottoman Empire and France beginning with an Ottoman envoy’s visit to Louis XIV’s Court in France in 1669. This visit has generally been given the labels “failed” and “sca…

This study explores social representations of Islam in the West, with the empirical inquiry focused on Britain. Drawing on Said's critique of Orientalism, treated as a Western representation of Islam, the author establishes a clear distinction between Islam and its representatio…

This thesis examines the 2009 video Harem by Turkish artist Inci Eviner (b. 1956). Eviner's work centralizes issues of gender in Turkish culture, the history of colonialism, and how historical location informs society at large. Eviner lives and works in Turkey, but exhibits inte…

The thesis explores the phenomenon of turquerie in nineteenth-century America, that is the fascination with and appropriation of elements of Turkish culture, particularly in interior designs and baths. The paper distinguishes turquerie from Orientalism, considering that the appr…

This study offers a new reading of L'Etranger; a reading nevertheless suggested by Camus himself: "Meursault, le seul christ que nous meritions." My dissertation's focus, and therefore its relevance, lies in the oftentimes overlooked influence of orientalism and the Orient in Ca…

This dissertation examines how the English-language prestige press and media represented the Lebanese Shi`a during a critical period in the group's history. Focused attention on three of the most prominent newspapers in the English-language media (the New York Times, the Times (…

Few world cities can claim to have had as much of an impact on American literature as the Moroccan city of Tangier. The writers who resided in or passed through the city in the 1950s and the works of literature produced there have re-charted the course of American letters. Tangi…

This dissertation examines the 9/11 novel for evidence of the continuities of Orientalism, for an intensified resistance to Orientalism, and for a new discourse of conciliation. The analysis primarily employs Said's Orientalism as the theoretical framework to study the selected …

From the late eighteenth century until the 1920s, one of the preeminent international issues in Europe was the so-called "Eastern Question," a term that refers to the events and dynamics related to the decline of the Ottoman Empire's political and economic power. European states…

Although postcolonial criticism has run its course for thirty years, a fresh look at Edward Said's Orientalism offers insight into how Orientalism functions in the writings of three British dames. Gertrude Bell in The Desert and the Sown, Freya Stark in The Southern Gates of Ara…

Months after the unofficial “start” of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, the spread of hashtags like #StopAsianHate and #StopAsianViolence perpetuated the ludicrous notion that a subsequent uptick in anti-Asian violence and sentimentality in the United States was wholly unpre…

The aim of this study is to show that Orientalism is produced by an intersection of multiple discourses, combining social, political, material and imaginative processes, and that the work of Armenian photographers, seen in proper perspective, represents not just another interest…

This thesis shows how Russia’s culture can be construed as a hybrid space because it is both central and peripheral, not simply East or West. From a cultural point of view, the center and the periphery were and are a kind of slippery palimpsest throughout the nation's history si…

This thesis explores the Orientalist discourse in four of Edgar Allan Poe’s poems and two of his prose essays. The major aspects of Orientalism examined in Poe’s works rely on the theortical ideas of Edwad Said’s Orientalism and other ideas developed by important Arab writers. S…

Since the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001, a vast discourse on contemporary terrorism has emerged within 'Western' media. This thesis analyzes the discourse of contemporary terrorism, and highlights how the postcolonialist critique of Orientalism pioneered by Edward Sa…

This dissertation considers representations of the Ottoman Empire in British writings (poetry, novels, travel writing) from c. 1789–1846. During this period of British imperial expansion, I argue that the Ottoman Empire provided British writers with a rich counterimage of empire…

During the late nineteenth century Frederick Arthur Bridgman (1847-1928) was one of the most prominent American expatriate artists. Trained under the foremost French teacher, Jean-Leon Gerome, Bridgman became internationally famous for his Orientalist paintings. From the 1860s t…

Western fascination with the Orient has generated many cliches that overshadow the actual experience of travelers. These cliches constitute the discourse of Orientalism, which Edward Said defined as "a way of coming to terms with the Orient that is based on the Orient's special …

The concept of Zion has long functioned as a synoptic metaphor for the North American continent and its possibilities as a New World promised land. The privileged place of the Holy Land within the early American Protestant imagination was reinforced by years of exposure to hymns…