AMES3867: Orientalism and the Arab World

This course explores the various manners in which “the Arab World” is constructed and re/presented in American and European discourses. Reading through scholarly writings, literature, visual arts, and popular media, this course illuminates the manner in which the idea of a monolithic “Arab World” and quintessential “Arab” subject are constructed and re/produced for western consumption. Crucially, this course also examines the manner in which this re/production of the “Arab World/Subject” is integral to the construction of western identity itself – serving as a foil to western self-conceptualization. The concept of orientalism was introduced into western scholarship by Edward Said through his seminal 1978 work, Orientalism, often credited as a foundational text in the field of postcolonial studies. In the first part of the course, we will closely read Orientalism and some of the influential critical engagements with Said’s book. We will also discuss how orientalist discourse has been subsumed under the debates on the “Clash of Civilizations” and “The War on Terror” in the 21st century. The second part of the course will look at orientalist representations in a variety of mediums, from literature and visual art to video games. In the final part of the course, we will try to “inventory the traces” of Orientalism on the Oriental subject, or examine the manner Arab artists and writers have engaged with orientalism’s legacies.

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