Orientalism

This study tries to critically unravel the way Islam is represented in western discourse through establishing the relationship between language and ideology, the forms it takes and its potential effect. To that end, headlines from widely circulated print media of the west including the Independent, the New York Times, the Herald Tribune, and The Times from January 1, 2008 to December 30, 2012 were selected and Islam and Muslim reproductions were studied therein. This study was carried out using a synthesis of Edward Said's notion of "Orientalism" and Van Dijk's notion of "ideological square", characterized by "positive self-presentation" and a simultaneous "negative other presentation". The analysis demonstrated that Islam is repetitively stereotyped and Muslims are negatively represented, both through various types of linguistic choices selected and via special construction of the headlines.  The educational implications of critical discourse analysis in general and the present study in particular are discussed in relation to teaching, learning and translating the English language.

Since the Islamic Revolution of 1979 and the deposition of the pro-American Pahlavi regime in Iran, an interest in the country as a mythical, complex, and conflict-ridden place has magnified among the American public. Exilic Iranian memoirs began to emerge after the 1979 Iranian Revolution and surged after September 11, 2001, claiming to provide an authentic depiction and explanation of the  Iranian society and politics and the ways in which it relates to the West and Western interests. The present article aims to analyze the ways in which post-Revolutionary Iran has been framed through memoirs written by Iranian-Americans. Through a framing analysis of fifteen selected memoirs on Iran,  the article identifies and presents six main frames in the analyzed texts based on Edward Said’s Orientalism. The paper concludes that instead of providing a more or less objective depiction that acknowledges the diversity and heterogeneity of the Iranian society and politics, the selected texts reflect the existence of an industry of memoirists that produce content depicting Iran in an orientalist way. Such an approach further inhibits any meaningful understanding and rectification of the existing misconceptions.

As a theoretical treatise, the present article brings to light the applicability of constructivism to the study of think tanks as ideational agents actively participating in the construction of ideational structures that constitute American identity, interests, and policies. It is argued that when discussing think tanks’ production of expertise and policy advice on U.S. relations with the Muslim world, American exceptionalism and Orientalism operate as two interconnected ideational structures influencing the process. Based on a constructivist framework, an investigation into the role of think tanks in U.S. foreign policy should not begin at the final stage of policy formation; rather, it is necessary to look into how think tanks influence the process of policy making at the ideational level. As such, the characteristics of U.S. foreign policy toward the Muslim world will remain unchanged as long as there is an ideational commitment to the creed of American exceptionalism; that is to say, as long as American exceptionalism constitutes American identity, American interest, and thus American foreign policy behavior toward the Muslim world. Think tanks, as the special focal points at the intersection of the political realm, the academia, and the media, serve as the hubs of American exceptionalism and Orientalism. As long as this dual creed is continually reproduced in the think tank world, it is logical to conclude that no change is in sight with regard to U.S. foreign policy and American unilateral interventionism in the Muslim world. A break with American exceptionalism and Orientalism in the think tank world, in turn, would signal the beginning of a new era in the operation of American foreign policy.

This article seeks to show the representation of gender and Muslim women in Hollywood cinema with a narrative analysis approach. Thus, using the approach of postcolonial theory in the critique of Orientalism discourse and the construction of gender in Eastern and Muslim women, and liberal feminism, Analyzes the narrative of "In the Land of Blood and Honey" (Angelina Jolie, 2011). This film is one of the most important Hollywood films that has dedicated its main narrative to the representation of a Muslim woman. The findings of this study show that the narrative of this film follows Orientalist gender stereotypes and, well, shows the contrast between the liberal and postcolonial feminist approaches. As the Eastern and Muslim woman is humiliated by both her Western sister and her community. Muslim woman in the narrative of this film; Is also the Orientalist object of American cinema; She is subjected to both sexual and gender clichés and is accused of treason against the world system and is considered worthy of death. Narrative analysis of this film can open new perspectives on postcolonial feminism.

Once treated like a pariah in the realm of literary criticism, the genre of travel writing becomes a legitimate object of critical inquiry after Said’s Orientalism in which he critically examines French and English travel books written in the context of colonialism. Similarly, this article embarks on reading Alexander Burnes’ Travels into Bokhara in the light of Orientalism. The travelogue recounts Burnes’ journey to Afghanistan and Turkistan during the Great Game. Instead of extracting and interpreting orientalist tropes in Burnes’ travel book, the present article seeks to study its antinarrative components: those statements and praxis which are inconsistent with Orientalism’s policing and regulatory norms. It contends that the travel writer exhibits his disenchantment with orientalist vision in three ways. Firstly, through recoiling from reiterating the trope of the alleged ‘Oriental’ despotism. Secondly, via unsettling the trope of the ‘monarch of all I survey’, and finally, by demonstrating cultural receptivity towards indigenous people and their Islamic culture.

While Iran was never formally colonized by Western powers, it’s governing regimes before the Islamic revolution were loyal to both the East and the West;  the country was therefore more or less a de facto colony of Russia, Great Britain, and the United States. One of the most pernicious consequences of such presences can be described as the "colonization of the mind," which has subtle and lasting manifestations. Using Edward Said's four major characteristics of Orientalism (i.e., binary opposition, over-generalization, fear and control, and depicting the Orient as stuck in past primitiveness), the present paper attempts to analyze the self-perception of the Iranians toward themselves to see whether the way they perceive themselves is similar to the Western discourse of the "Orient." In the first step, a number of interviews with a representative sampling of the population under investigation were conducted to develop a questionnaire. The questionnaires were then distributed and 650 responses were collected. The survey was meant to assess the four components of Orientalism as proposed by Said, among the respondents. It also contained questions about the respondents' lifestyle, their perceptions toward nationalism, and media consumption. The results reveal evidence of Orientalist self-perception among the Iranians when they compare themselves with the West.

Call of Duty is a popular first-person shooter (FPS) game. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2007) was the first game in the franchise which did not focus on the World Wars’ history. It was also the first Call of Duty which had a continuous interactive digital narrative (IDN). This article attempts to take a comparative approach to the game. As a cultural product, the game is susceptible to postcolonial and orientalist discourses. This article attempts to apply Edward Said’s theories to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare in order to prove that the game’s IDN was shaped by postcolonialism and orientalism. The game functioned as a cultural medium which disseminated orientalist discourses amongst its player base. As such, this article tries to not only shed light upon a lesser-known aspect of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare but also to demonstrate that computer games are not exempt from external cultural forces.

The second half of the eighteenth century was a period of transition in European aesthetics. It was also a time of increasing contact between Europe and Asia. The rise of Oriental literary scholarship was a natural outgrowth of the public interest in things Oriental. While the earlier part of the century had sought to reaffirm the basic tenets of the Enlightenment with the help of its indirect knowledge of the Oriental literatures, the later generations became increasingly fascinated with the new possibilities of the literary heritage of the East. The Shahnameh first attracted the attention of the eighteenth-century Orientalists such as Sir William Jones as the supreme example of Oriental epic poetry. The present essay proposes to study Jones's conception of Persian literature and his remarks on the poetry of Firdawsi, as well as his fragmentary translations of the Shahnameh .

Iranian Studies, a facet of Orientalism, has long intrigued Western academia. This research explores the alignment of the Institute of Iranian Studies (IFI) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) with Edward Said's Postcolonial Theory, questioning if IFI's work mirrors Said's views on the colonial roots of Orientalism. The research posits that the IFI's undertakings neither manifest a colonial inclination nor align seamlessly with Said's theoretical framework. To substantiate this claim, four seminal publications from the IFI were subjected to a directed content analysis based on constructing a research categories matrix, influenced by Said's postcolonial paradigm (Orientalism). Within this matrix, columns demarcate four representational domains: Politics, Society, Culture, and Religion, while rows differentiate six dichotomous concepts, including Similarity-Difference; Equality-Inferiority; Internal Convergence-Divergence; External Convergence-Divergence; Progress-Backwardness; and Freedom-Despotism. The findings suggest that the IFI's selected works portray Iran in a predominantly positive light across all domains. Thus, it appears that the IFI's 21st-century scholarly contributions diverge from Edward Said's postcolonial critique of Orientalism, with distinct differences in approach and perspective. However, considering Said's critique primarily targets works of English-speaking Orientalists from colonial powers, the conclusions of this research don't necessarily counter his theory. It suggests caution in generalizing Said's framework to German-speaking Orientalists, or more specifically, to the outputs of the IFI.