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Introducing Edward Said (1935-2003)

Introducing Edward Said (1935-2003). Presented by : Mohammad Izad bin Shuwardi & Mohd Fauzi bin Mohamed Arshad Edited by : Dr. Md. Mahmudul Hasan International Islamic University Malaysia 2010. Full name: Edward Wadie Said

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Introducing Edward Said (1935-2003)

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  1. Introducing Edward Said (1935-2003) Presented by: Mohammad Izad bin Shuwardi & Mohd Fauzi bin Mohamed Arshad Edited by: Dr. Md. Mahmudul Hasan International Islamic University Malaysia 2010

  2. Full name: Edward Wadie Said Born: November 1, 1935 Jerusalem (British Mandate of Palestine) Died: September 25, 2003 (aged 67), New York Fluent in English, French and Arabic. Earned Bachelor of Arts (1957) from Princeton University, Master of Arts (1960) and a Ph.D. (1964) in English Literature from Harvard University. Notable ideas : Occidentalism, Orientalism and ‘The Other’

  3. He was a Palestinian-American literary theorist and advocate for Palestinian rights. He was a University Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University and a founding figure in post-colonialism. • Robert Fisk describes him as the Palestinians' “most powerful political voice”.

  4. He argues for the creation of a Palestinian state, equal rights for Palestinians in Israel, including the right of return, and for increased pressure on Israel, especially by the United States. He also criticizes several Arab and Muslim regimes and promotes Pro-Palestinian activism. He criticizes US foreign policy.

  5. Orientalism

  6. Orientalism(1978) • The book points to false assumptions underlying Western attitudes toward the East. • In this book, Said also denounces the practice of Arab elites who internalize the US and British orientalists' ideas of Arabic culture.

  7. Said argues that western study of Islamic civilization was political intellectualism bent on self-affirmation rather than objective study, a form of racism, and a tool of imperialist domination. For him, most Western writings on the Orient, and the perceptions of the East purveyed in them, are suspect, and cannot be taken at face value. The Western scholars appropriated the task of exploration and interpretation of the Orient’s languages, history and culture for themselves, with the implication that the East was not capable of composing its own narrative.

  8. He concludes that Western writings about the Orient depict it as an irrational, weak, feminized "Other", and contrasted with the rational, strong, masculine West. This contrast (he suggests) derives from the need to create "difference" between West and East that can be attributed to immutable "essences" in the Oriental make-up.

  9. Culture and imperialism

  10. Culture and Imperialism (1993) examines the relationship between the West and its imperial conquests within the context of culture. Said views imperialism not as a confined era of history, but rather as relatively more fluid.

  11. Said refers to the media's ability to control and filter information as an 'invisible screen', releasing what it wants people to know and blacking out what it does not want them to know. • To accomplish his goal Said sets up a methodological argument within which he addresses three main concepts. • First, that imperialism is not about a specific moment in history, but rather a continuing interdependent dialogue between subject peoples and the dominant hegemony of the empire.

  12. Secondly, through the production of popular western literature authors have maintained a sense of continued supremacy upon subject peoples. This theorization that postcolonial domination has been institutionalized within western literature is a reference to the idea of a continuing interchange of ideas between dominant culture and oppressed peoples.

  13. Lastly, Said's comparison of colonialism to racism is integral to his argument about the continuation of oppression in a postcolonial environment. Throughout his analysis of culture, he focuses on the limitations of subjugated peoples within western culture and the reasons for their continued oppression.

  14. Covering Islam

  15. In Covering Islam (1997), Said postulates that, if knowledge is power, those who control the modern Western media (visual and print) are most powerful because they are able to determine what people like or dislike, what they wear and how they wear it, and what they should know and must not know about themselves.

  16. Said claims that untruth and falsehood about Islam and the Muslim world are consistently propagated in the media, in the name of objectivity, liberalism, freedom, democracy and ‘progress’.

  17. A man's intellect enables him to think, ponder, contemplate and question. His intellect is, according to Islam, what makes him unique as an individual. Man, by nature, is a rational being, but the western media wants him to be irrational — in the sense of accepting or agreeing to an idea without verifying, thinking about or questioning it. In other words, says Said, irrationalism means to let one person think and decide for another — to let one person control others.

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