Abstract
Hidden away at the end of Edward Said’s seminal text, Orientalism, is a brief summary of his main arguments. Consisting of what he calls ‘four principal dogmas’, these establish the binary differences between East and West that make up the substantive bulk of his focus – namely us versus them, modernity versus atavism, subject versus object and humanity versus barbarity. This paper uses each as a vantage point from which to analyse and problematise established narratives on the relationship between Islam and political violence. Bringing together a wide-ranging field of scholarship and commentary, it aims to move beyond critique and towards a more sustained, and challenging, focus on the conceptual and empirical flaws that underpin the Occidental half of these apparently settled distinctions.
Subject
General Social Sciences,Sociology and Political Science,Social Sciences (miscellaneous),Archeology,Anthropology,Archeology,Cultural Studies
Reference160 articles.
1. E. W. Said, 'Arabs, Islam and the dogmas of the West', New York Times, 31 October 1976, https://www.nytimes.com/1976/10/31/archives/arabs-islam-and-the-dogmas-of-the-west-arabs.html
2. E. W. Said, Orientalism (New York: Pantheon, 1978).
3. P. Mather, ‘Shanghaied in Singapore: dogmas of Orientalism’, Canadian Journal of Film Studies 29, no. 2 (2020), p. 100.
4. Said, Orientalism, pp. 327, 300–01.
5. P. Mather, ‘Intercultural sensitivity in Orientalist cinema’, East Asian Journal of Popular Culture 6, no. 2 (2020), p. 185.