In the field of Middle Eastern Studies, Edward Said's Orientalism is seminal. It's the bedrock of how the field is taught in undergraduate classes, and as you o

In the field of Middle Eastern Studies, Edward Said's Orientalism is seminal. It's the bedrock of how the field is taught in undergraduate classes, and as you observed, it's cited in a lot of papers. What you're doing here is like me jumping into a C++ conversation and talking about how Bjarne Strousop is Wrong about object oriented programming because the original Rollercoaster Tycoon was written in assembly. You're ignoring a lot of context about why this is an important frame of reference for the field, and bringing in a bunch of largely unrelated counterexamples. Now, let's address those counterexamples: First, let's look at that quote again: > Said defines [orientalism] as the West’s stereotyped perception of the Middle East – based in Western domination, *both colonial and postcolonial,* of the East That knocks out your latter three examples right there. We know that European nations haven't always been the dominating force in global affairs (as much as my dead comment sibling would like to believe that). We know that all kinds of societies are capable of imperialism and war and genocide. Orientalism concerns itself specifically with how "Western" scholars and intelligentsia portray "Eastern" people, societies, and concepts in the service of imperialism. That is to say, Orientalism necessitates Western imperialism. If we're looking at an era before Western colonialism, orientalism is not a helpful academic framework - it doesn't apply. Likewise, the atrocities the Ottoman Empire committed doesn't affect the premise that Western scholars portray the Middle East in a reductive light. The contention of Orientalism is that the West stereotypes the East as static and incapable, and that this perpetuates Western subjugation of the East. Said does not actually believe that Western societies always dominate Eastern ones, or that the east is incapable of domination themselves, quite the opposite. a huge part of Orientalism is about defining the concept of the Middle East. Said contends that the "East" as we know it is a construction of the Western world, and that it is a perspective that serves to whitewash and perpetuate imperialism. In that way, Said's work is much less about forgetting history and much more about seeing the "East" for what it is: a multitude of different, not strictly related societies that aren't static and undeveloped, but rather equally capable, just now affected by the most recent round of empire. On that point, I think you and Edward Said actually agree.