As a scholarly practice, Orientalism emerged in late 18th-century European centres of learning and their colonial outposts, when the study of the languages, literatures, religions, laws, and art of East Asian societies became a major focus of scholarly attention and intellectual energy.

Why was Orientalism created?

The politics of Orientalism

In his groundbreaking 1978 text Orientalism, the late cultural critic and theorist Edward Saïd argued that a dominant European political ideology created the notion of the Orient in order to subjugate and control it.

What is the concept of Orientalism?

"Orientalism” is a way of seeing that imagines, emphasizes, exaggerates and distorts differences of Arab peoples and cultures as compared to that of Europe and the U.S. It often involves seeing Arab culture as exotic, backward, uncivilized, and at times dangerous.