The Challenge of Orientalism

This paper offers a reading of Said's Orientalism and a critical 'review of reviews'; of the book. Our analysis is informed by our definition of Orientalism as a discourse whose key aspects are historical specificity, knowledge and power. We argue that a number of reviews of the text are marked by a severing of these three components. Said's text and its reviews are examined thematically. Our concerns include the separation of general questions of representation from the particular case of Orientalism, the questionable status of a 'real'; Orient in Said's project and the problem of the 'universally dichotomising mind'