​Edward Said’s Orientalism and Its Afterlives

 

A painting by Henry Martens portraying the battle of Ferozeshah in the First Anglo-Sikh War, which resulted in defeat and partial subjugation of the Sikh empire to the British.

“Few works have had a greater influence on the current left than Edward Said’s Orientalism. In the first instance, it has become the lodestone for critical scholarship around the colonial experience and imperialism. But more expansively, in its status as a founding text of postcolonial studies, its imprint can be discerned across the moral sciences — in race studies, history, cultural theory, and even political economy. Indeed, it is hard to think of many books that have had a greater influence on critical scholarship over the past half century. There are some respects in which Said’s placement of colonialism at the center of the modern era has had a salutary effect, not just on scholarship, but also on politics. ...”

Jacobin

What does ‘postcolonial’ mean?

2018 April: Orientalism - Edward W. Said (1978), 2019 January: Orientalism’s Equestrian Eye, 2020 April: A Journey into the World of the Ottomans