101 Orientalism Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

🏆 best orientalism topic ideas & essay examples, 📌 simple & easy orientalism essay titles, 👍 good essay topics on orientalism, ❓ essay questions on orientalism.

  • Aladdin as the Contemporary Example of Orientalism To protect the languages, lifestyles, art, cultures, and values of the representatives of Asia and the Middle East, it is essential to avoid the biased image of different population groups in literature, cinematography, and art.
  • Orient and Occident: “Orientalism” by Edward Said In the contemporary world, the West views the East in terms of oil and Islam. Occident reporters and scholars misrepresent the East and, therefore, propagate the notion that it is the moral duty of the […] We will write a custom essay specifically for you by our professional experts 808 writers online Learn More
  • Orientalism in Ozymandias and Alastor: When Exotics Meets Wisdom The Asian world has always been a mystery for the Western civilization; the former lives according its own laws which the European culture conceive completely, envisions the world, its origins and the way its elements […]
  • The Term Orientalism and Its Differences on the East and the West It is important to note that the idea of the differences in culture between the East and the West can be traced back to the early Roman times in which there was an increasing opinion […]
  • Investigating Edward Said’s Claim That Orientalism Is Dominating the Media Said’s definition of orientalism also cautions that the extremist using the Media to brand Middle East Muslims as the enemy before the invasion is also valid.
  • The geisha and western “orientalism” Thus it was the responsibility of these few women to enforce the traditional standards in the profession and also increase the rights of the geisha. Most of the western cultures refer and equate geisha to […]
  • Orientalism: Asia in Australian Cultural Practices By looking at Orientalism from the most general dimension, as the study of people’s culture with respect to some other significant culture, the essay presents the ways in which the representation of Asia in the […]
  • The Film “Iron Man” by Jon Favreau: Notion of Orientalism One of the vivid examples of false and stereotypical representations of the East is in the film Iron Man. Thus, the supremacy of the West over the East is visible in the film.
  • Immigration: Orientalism and Yellow Power The migration was propelled by drought and floods on the Opium trade between the Chinese and the British. The initial resistance against the Chinese started in 1875 with the enactment of the Page Act.
  • Edward Said’s “Orientalism: Western Conceptions of the Orient” The notions developed at that time romanticized the Middle East formulating the ideas that are still persistent today: that Arab men are overly sensual and easily become angry, females are beautiful and submissive, and the […]
  • Muslim Places, Rituals, and Orientalism A distinctive feature of the historical anthropological research from other methods of the studying of Islam culture within the framework of spaces and places of worship is a combination of both historiographical and architectural approaches.
  • Understanding of ‘Asia’ and the ‘West’: The Influence of Tradition on Occidentalism and Orientalism This, exerts Said, has resulted in a breach between the truth of what the Orient actually is and what the West portrays it to be.
  • The Issues of Orientalism and Post Colonialism Originally, Orientalism is the division of philosophical, historical, cultural and political studies, that relate the place and the role of the Eastern countries in the world politics, and the lives of the other countries all […]
  • Orientalism and East and West Conflicts Today, the lines are blurred as to determine whether it should be an east or west conflict as it could also be any form of war against one ethnic group by a whole nation or […]
  • Orientalism: The Roles of Women in the Muslim Culture The concept of guardianship, rigid gender roles and male control over women’s sexuality are also tools to impose and enforce heterosexuality.
  • Orientalism Theoretical Tradition The predominantly civilizational studies carried out in the context of Orientalism are connected with the study of the East, usually opposed to the West, as a result of which the Western concepts of the East […]
  • The Value of Orientalism: France, Britain, and the US It was widely used in the 19th century to refer to the Middle East, especially the region covering Islamic nations, such as Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, and the neighboring countries. The Orients were viewed by […]
  • Europe and Orientalism by Edward Said In his arguments, Edward Said claims that the Europeans categorized the world into two divisions; the Occidents and the Orientals, in other words, they were referring to a world of the civilized and the primitive.
  • Orientalism in “Not Without My Daughter” Film It is used by academicians in reference to the culture of societies in some parts of the world. The movie is a true story that depicts the plight of women in the Middle East.
  • Orientalism in the Middle East Cultural Studies The peculiar feature of this book is its author’s fearlessness and ability to identify the weaknesses of the East and the delusions of the West.
  • History: Orientalism in the American Society American society is one of the most diverse in the world as people of all cultural and ethnic backgrounds come to the USA in their search for a better life.
  • Orientalist Constructions of Muslim Bodies and the Rhetoric of the «War on Terror» In addition, the paper will analyze the contribution and impact of the Muslim religion on the war on terror and the effect this will have on the whole world.
  • Orientalism in Western Art It is easier to explore the impact of Orientalism on human perception of the East through the works of art produced in the 19th and 20th centuries, since they reflect the vision that critical thinkers […]
  • Hwang’s Critique of Orientalism However, it is possible to state, judging from the huge body of literature dedicated to the essence of Orientalism, the analysis of it roots and the process of its formation, that Orientalism in itself is […]
  • Tribal Cultures, Colonialism & Orientalism It had demonstrated that the democratic undertakings in the Western version are ideal and practical to the rest of the world.
  • Ethnic Groups and Orientalism Orientalism is a term used in reference to a style of thought based on a distinction between the orient and the west. Orientalism is a factor in the political and economic development of the west.
  • Orientalism in Electronic Media: A Challenge for Muslim World
  • Theme Of Orientalism In The Novel ‘Frankenstein’
  • Orientalism and the Formation Of Stereotypes in Burton’s Arabian Nights
  • The Anti-Islam Discourse of Medieval Europe, the Crusades, Orientalism, European Colonialism
  • Orientalism and the Postcolonial Predicament: Perspectives on South Asia New Cultural Studies
  • Achebe’s Things Fall Apart: Orientalism and Gender Roles
  • Orientalism and Post-Colonial Theory
  • Orientalism And The Treatment Of Arabs In Western Media
  • Orientalism and Its Use by Poets, Authors and Statesmen in the Nineteenth Century
  • The Dynamics of Orientalism and Globalization in the International Sex Industry and Human Trafficking
  • The Association Between Hegemonic Influence And Discourse Within The Framework Of Western Orientalism
  • Orientalism in Tayeb Salih’s Season of Migration to the North
  • Orientalism According to Edward Said and Oriental Renaissance According to Raymond Schwab
  • Orientalism and Its Misconceptions in the Works of Edward W. Said
  • Negative Self-Image Orientalism Reading in Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
  • The Idea of Orientalism Portrayed in James Cameron’s Avatar
  • An Analysis of Art According to Edward Said’s Orientalism
  • Orientalism Study, Represented in Conrad’s Novel
  • The Dangers of Forming Realities: Perspective and “Orientalism” in The Satanic Verses
  • Mansfield Park; Empire & Orientalism from Edward Said
  • The Geography Of Capitalism And Orientalism Over Nicollet Avenue And Migrants
  • Representaton of Orientalism in Memoirs of a Geisha and Lost in Translation
  • The Cinematic Vilification of Arabian Characters in Hollywood Movies in Edward Said’s Text on Orientalism
  • Analysis Of Orientalism In Rice Or Song Of Orientalism
  • The Romantic Other; Edward Said’s ‘Orientalism’ Applied to Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s ‘Kubla Khan’
  • The Dangerous Myth of Orientalism, and Xenophobia in the West
  • Orientalism : A Western Style For Dominating, Restructuring
  • Nation-Building, Orientalism, and Othering in Danticat’s The Farming of Bones
  • Analyzing the Orientalism of Edward Said
  • Orientalism Is The Accepted Propaganda Of The Middle East
  • The Greek Slave Of American Orientalism
  • Orientalist Thinking Simba Orient Orientalism
  • Characteristics of Orientalism, Prejudice and Discrimination
  • Orientalism : The Romantic Era Of British Literature
  • The Reflection on the Process of Orientalism According to Edward Said
  • Western Ideology of Orientalism in John Luther Long’s Play
  • Orientalism and Globalization in the International Sex Industry
  • Orientalism In Song Of Roland. Includes Edward Said’s Rhetoric
  • Social And Psychological Role Of Gender With Orientalism
  • The Last Samurai: Hollywood and Orientalism
  • Season of Migration to the North and Orientalism
  • Overview of Orientalism by Edward Said
  • Orientalism Through Novel The Kite Runner By Khaled Hosseini
  • Orientalism Is Defined As A Way Of Viewing Eastern Cultures
  • Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea and Orientalism
  • Imagined Community, Orientalism and Moral Panic Concepts
  • What Is the Meaning of Orientalism Institution?
  • What Is the Meaning of Orientalism?
  • Who Attacked the Orientalism?
  • Who Is the Author of Orientalism?
  • What Is the Theme of Orientalism by Edward Said?
  • What Does Said Mean by Orientalism?
  • Is Known as the Father of Orientalism in India?
  • When Did Orientalism Start?
  • Who Was Called the Father of Orientalism?
  • What Is the Crisis in Orientalism?
  • What Does Orientalism Language Mean?
  • How Is Aladdin an Example of Orientalism?
  • What Is the Central Belief of Orientalism?
  • What Is the Opposite of Orientalism?
  • What Are Orientalism and Occident?
  • Who Was the Supporter of the Orientalists?
  • What Is Considered the Orientalism?
  • What Is the Main Idea of Orientalism?
  • What Are the Three Types of Orientalism?
  • Who Is the Father of Orientalism?
  • What Is Modern Orientalism?
  • What Are the Three Characteristics of Orientalism?
  • What Did James Mill Declare While Attacking the Orientalists?
  • What Is an Example of Orientalism?
  • What Is Orientalism in Sociology?
  • Who Were the Main Orientalists?
  • What Is the Difference between Orientalist and Anglicist?
  • Is James Mill an Orientalist?
  • What Is the Difference Between Orientalism and Imperialism?
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101 Orientalism Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

Inside This Article

Orientalism has been a prominent topic in academic discourse for decades, with scholars examining the ways in which Western societies have historically viewed and portrayed Eastern cultures. From literature to art to film, Orientalism has permeated various aspects of society, shaping perceptions and attitudes towards the East.

If you're looking for inspiration for your next essay on Orientalism, look no further. In this article, we've compiled a list of 101 essay topic ideas and examples that you can use to explore this complex and multifaceted concept. Whether you're interested in analyzing historical texts, critiquing contemporary media, or delving into the complexities of cultural appropriation, there's a topic here for you.

The origins of Orientalism in Western literature

Orientalist depictions of the Middle East in 19th-century painting

The role of Orientalism in shaping Western perceptions of the East

Orientalism in contemporary Hollywood films

Edward Said's critique of Orientalism

Gender and Orientalism in Western art

Orientalist photography in the 19th century

Orientalism and imperialism in British literature

The legacy of Orientalist stereotypes in Western culture

Orientalism and the construction of the "Other"

Orientalism in fashion and design

The representation of Asian cultures in Western media

The impact of Orientalism on international relations

Orientalism and colonialism in French literature

Orientalist motifs in Western architecture

Orientalism in Western travel writing

The exoticization of the East in Western advertising

Orientalism and the construction of racial hierarchies

Orientalist influences on Western music

Orientalism and cultural appropriation in the fashion industry

The portrayal of the Middle East in Western news media

Orientalism in European opera

The intersection of Orientalism and Islamophobia

Orientalist themes in Western poetry

Orientalism and the fetishization of Asian women

Orientalist influences on Western cuisine

The representation of the East in Western children's literature

Orientalism and the construction of national identity

Orientalist motifs in Western interior design

Orientalism in Western academic scholarship

The impact of Orientalism on Western tourism

Orientalist influences on Western film noir

Orientalism and the construction of the "mystical East"

Orientalism in Western philosophy

Orientalist depictions of the Silk Road

The reception of Orientalist art in the East

Orientalism and the construction of Orientalist museums

Orientalist influences on Western music festivals

Orientalism and the construction of Orientalist gardens

Orientalism in Western graphic novels

The portrayal of China in Western literature

Orientalism and the construction of Orientalist theater

Orientalist influences on Western dance

Orientalism and the construction of Orientalist theme parks

Orientalism in Western video games

Orientalist influences on Western street art

Orientalism and the construction of Orientalist food trucks

Orientalism in Western science fiction

Orientalist influences on Western comic books

Orientalism and the construction of Orientalist night markets

Orientalism in Western horror films

Orientalist influences on Western fashion photography

Orientalism and the construction of Orientalist boutique hotels

Orientalism in Western stand-up comedy

Orientalist influences on Western rock music

Orientalism and the construction of Orientalist cocktail bars

Orientalism in Western poetry slam

Orientalist influences on Western jazz music

Orientalism and the construction of Orientalist street festivals

Orientalism in Western spoken word poetry

The portrayal of Japan in Western literature

Orientalism and the construction of Orientalist pop-up restaurants

Orientalist influences on Western graffiti art

Orientalism in Western science fiction literature

Orientalist influences on Western hip hop music

Orientalism in Western slam poetry

Orientalist influences on Western folk music

Orientalism and the construction of Orientalist street art festivals

Orientalism in Western rap music

Orientalist influences on Western punk music

Orientalism and the construction of Orientalist music festivals

Orientalism in Western reggae music

Orientalist influences on Western electronic music

Orientalism and the construction of Orientalist music clubs

Orientalism in Western country music

Orientalist influences on Western blues music

Orientalism and the construction of Orientalist music venues

Orientalism in Western classical music

Orientalist influences on Western opera music

Orientalism and the construction of Orientalist music halls

Orientalism in Western rock and roll music

Orientalist influences on Western soul music

Orientalism and the construction of Orientalist music studios

Orientalism in Western folk music

Orientalist influences on Western world music

Orientalism and the construction of Orientalist music schools

Orientalism in Western hip hop music

Orientalist influences on Western indie music

Orientalism in Western pop music

Orientalist influences on Western experimental music

Orientalism in Western punk music

Orientalist influences on Western metal music

These are just a few of the many possible essay topics on Orientalism that you could explore. Whether you're interested in the historical roots of Orientalism, its impact on contemporary culture, or its intersections with other forms of oppression, there's a wealth of material to draw from. So dive in, do some research, and start crafting your own unique perspective on this complex and multifaceted concept.

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Articles on Orientalism

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research paper topics about orientalism

How colonialist depictions of Palestinians feed western ideas of eastern ‘barbarism’

Elizabeth Vibert , University of Victoria

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Reclaiming Dada women’s art history shouldn’t mean amplifying orientalism and sexism

Irene Gammel , Toronto Metropolitan University

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Oppenheimer often used Sanskrit verses, and the Bhagavad Gita was special for him − but not in the way Christopher Nolan’s film depicts it

Vasudha Narayanan , University of Florida

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Iraqi journalist Ghaith Abdul-Ahad watched Saddam’s statue topple in 2003. His ‘standout’ war memoir de-centres the West

Cyma Hibri , University of Sydney

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White Lotus Day celebrates the ‘founding mother of occult in America,’ Helena Petrovna Blavatsky

Marina Alexandrova , The University of Texas at Austin

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Will a UN resolution to commemorate the expulsion of Palestinians from their lands change the narrative? — Listen

Vinita Srivastava , The Conversation and Boké Saisi, The Conversation

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Orientalism: Edward Said’s groundbreaking book explained

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The Whitewash is a scathing, hilarious satire of Asian misrepresentation in Hollywood

Jindan Ni , RMIT University

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Why we should abandon the concept of the ‘climate refugee’

W. Andrew Baldwin , Durham University

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Why Ms. Marvel matters so much to Muslim, South Asian fans

Safiyya Hosein , Toronto Metropolitan University

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Schools need to step up to address Islamophobia

Nada Aoudeh , York University, Canada and Muna Saleh , Concordia University of Edmonton

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Islamophobia in schools: How teachers and communities can recognize and challenge its harms

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Tokyo Olympics branding adds to stereotypical view of Japan — but that doesn’t make it appropriation

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The model minority myth hides the racist and sexist violence experienced by Asian women

Jiyoung Lee-An , Carleton University and Xiaobei Chen , Carleton University

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‘Caliphate’ podcast and its fallout reveal the extent of Islamophobia

Fahad Ahmad , Carleton University and Tarek Younis , Middlesex University

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Katherine Bullock , University of Toronto

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CRISPR gene-editing controversy shows old ideas about East and West still prevail

Calvin Wai-Loon Ho , National University of Singapore

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Literary Theory and Criticism

Home › Analysis of Edward Said‘s Orientalism

Analysis of Edward Said‘s Orientalism

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on November 10, 2020 • ( 0 )

Edward Said‘s publication of Orientalism ( 1978) made such an impact on thinking about colonial discourse that for two decades it has continued to be the site of controversy, adulation and criticism. Said‘s intervention is designed to illustrate the manner in which the representation of Europe‘s ‘others’ has been institutionalised since at least the eighteenth century as a feature of its cultural dominance. Orientalism describes the various disciplines, institutions, processes of investigation and styles of thought by which Europeans came to ‘know‘ the ‘Orient‘ over several centuries, and which reached their height during the rise and consolidation of nineteenth-century imperialism.

The key to Said‘s interest in this way of knowing Europe‘s others is that it effectively demonstrates the link between knowledge and power, for it ‘constructs‘ and dominates Orientals in the process of knowing them. The very term ‘Oriental‘ shows how the process works, for the word identifies and homogenises at the same time, implying a range of knowledge and an intellectual mastery over that which is named. Since Said‘s analysis, Orientalism has revealed itself as a model for the many ways in which Europe‘s strategies for knowing the colonised world became, at the same time, strategies for dominating that world.

Orientalism, in Said‘s formulation, is principally a way of defining and ‘locating‘ Europe‘s others. But as a group of related disciplines Orientalism was, in important ways, about Europe itself, and hinged on arguments that circulated around the issue of national distinctiveness, and racial and linguistic origins. Thus the elaborate and detailed examinations of Oriental languages, histories and cultures were carried out in a context in which the supremacy and importance of European civilisation was unquestioned. Such was the vigour of the discourse that myth, opinion, hearsay and prejudice generated by influential scholars quickly assumed the status of received truth.

Orientalism is an openly political work. Its aim is not to investigate the array of disciplines or to elaborate exhaustively the historical or cultural provenance of Orientalism, but rather to reverse the ‘gaze‘ of the discourse, to analyse it from the point of view of an ‘Oriental‘ —to ‘inventory the traces upon…the Oriental subject, of the culture whose domination has been so powerful a fact in the life of all Orientals’ (Said 1978:25). How Said can claim to be an ‘Oriental‘ rehearses the recurrent paradox running through his work. But his experience of living in the United States, where the ‘East‘ signifies danger and threat, is the source of the worldliness of Orientalism. The provenance of the book demonstrates the deep repercussions of Orientalist discourse, for it emerges directly from the ‘disheartening‘ life of an Arab Palestinian in the West.

The web of racism, cultural stereotypes, political imperialism, dehumanizing ideology holding in the Arab or the Muslim is very strong indeed, and it is this web which every Palestinian has come to feel as his uniquely punishing destiny…The nexus of knowledge and power creating ‘the oriental‘ and in a sense obliterating him as a human being is therefore not for me an exclusively academic matter. Yet it is an intellectual matter of some very obvious importance. (1978:27)

Orientalism , as we can see, is the fruit of Said‘s own ‘uniquely punishing destiny’. In this book, a Palestinian Arab living in America deploys the tools and techniques of his adopted professional location to discern the manner in which cultural hegemony is maintained. His intention, he claims, was to provoke, and thus to stimulate ‘a new kind of dealing with the Orient‘ (1978:28). Indeed, if this binary between ‘Orient’ and ‘Occident’ were to disappear altogether, ‘we shall have advanced a little in the process of what Welsh Marxist cultural critic Raymond Williams has called the “unlearning” of “the inherent dominative mode” (1978:28).

Said‘s own work of identity construction underlies the passion behind Orientalism. The intellectual power of the book comes from its inspired and relentlessly focused analysis of the way in which a variety of disciplines operated within certain coherent discursive limits, but the cultural, and perhaps even emotional, power of the book comes from its ̳worldly‘ immediacy, its production by a writer whose identity has been constructed, in part, by this discourse, who still feels the effects of Orientalist ‘knowledge‘. Passion can be a confusing and unreflective element in intellectual debate, and while the passion no doubt explains a great deal about the popularity of Orientalism, the refusal by many critics to take the book‘s worldliness into account has tended to limit their perception of its significance.

research paper topics about orientalism

Before the publication of Orientalism , the term ‘Orientalism‘ itself had faded from popular usage, but in the late 1970s it took on a renewed and vigorous life. The disciplines of modern Oriental studies, despite their sophistication, are inescapably imbued with the traditional representations of the nature of the Orient (especially the Middle East) and the assumptions that underlie the discourse of Orientalism. While Said laments the sometimes indiscriminate manner in which Orientalism has been appropriated, there is little doubt that it has had a huge impact on social theory in general. By1995, Orientalism had become a ‘collective book‘ that had ‘superseded‘ its author more than could have been expected. One might add that it is a continually growing book, in that the analysis of the strategies of Orientalism has been useful in detecting the specific discursive and cultural operations of imperial culture in various ways. For the analysis hinges on the ideological nature of representation and the ways in which powerful representations become the ‘true‘ and accepted ones, despite their stereotypical and even caricatured nature.

Orientalism is divided into three main parts. In the first part Said establishes the expansive and amorphous capacity of Orientalism. It is a discourse that has been in existence for over two centuries and one that continues into the present. The focus in this section is to look at the question of representation in order to illustrate the similarities in diverse ideas such as ‘Oriental despotism, Oriental sensuality, Oriental modes of production, and Oriental splendour‘ (1976:47).

The second part of the book is an exposition of ‘Orientalist structures and restructures’. Here, Said sets out to establish how the main philological, historical and creative writers in the nineteenth-century drew upon a tradition of knowledge that allowed them textually to construct and control the Orient. This construction and rendering visible of the Orient served the colonial administration that subsequently utilized this knowledge to establish a system of rule.

The third part is an examination of ‘Modern Orientalism‘. This section shows how the established legacies of British and French Orientalism were adopted and adapted by the United States. For Said, nowhere is this better reflected than in the manner in which these legacies are manifested in American foreign policy. The book is a complex articulation of how the absorptive capacity of Orientalism has been able to adopt influences such as positivism, Marxism and Darwinism without altering its central tenets.

The term ‘Orientalism‘ is derived from ‘Orientalist‘, which has been associated traditionally with those engaged in the study of the Orient. The very term ‘the Orient‘ holds different meanings for different people. As Said points out, Americans associate it with the Far East, mainly Japan and China, while for Western Europeans, and in particular the British and the French, it conjures up different images. It is not only adjacent to Europe; ‘it is also the place of Europe‘s greatest and richest and oldest colonies, the source of its civilizations and languages, its cultural contestant, and one of its deepest and most recurring images of the Other’ (1978:1).

Part of the pervasive power of Orientalism is that it refers to at least three different pursuits, all of which are interdependent: an academic discipline, a style of thought and a corporate institution for dealing with the Orient. As an academic discipline, Orientalism emerged in the late-eighteenth century and has since assembled an archive of knowledge that has served to perpetuate and reinforce Western representations of it. Orientalism is ‘the discipline by which the Orient was (and is) approached systematically, as a topic of learning, discovery and practice‘ (1978:73). As a style of thought it is ‘based upon an ontological and epistemological distinction‘ (1978:2) between the Orient and the Occident. This definition is more expansive and can accommodate as diverse a group of writers as classical Greek playwright Aeschylus (524–455 BC), medieval Italian poet Dante Alighieri (1265–1335), French novelist Victor Hugo (1802–85) and German social scientist and revolutionary Karl Marx (1818–83). The third definition of Orientalism as a corporate institution is demonstrative of its amorphous capacity as a structure used to dominate and authorize the Orient. Hence, Orientalism necessarily is viewed as being linked inextricably to colonialism.

The three definitions as expounded by Said illustrate how Orientalism is a complex web of representations about the Orient. The first two definitions embody the textual creation of the Orient while the latter definition illustrates how Orientalism has been deployed to execute authority and domination over the Orient. The three are interrelated, particularly since the domination entailed in the third definition is reliant upon and justified by the textual establishment of the Orient that emerges out of the academic and imaginative definitions of Orientalism.

THE SCOPE OF ORIENTALISM

The core of Said‘s argument resides in the link between knowledge and power, which is amply demonstrated by Prime Minister Arthur Balfour‘s defense of Britain‘s occupation of Egypt in 1910, when he declared that: ‘We know the civilization of Egypt better than we know any other country’ (1978:32). Knowledge for Balfour meant not only surveying a civilisation from its origins, but being able to do that . ‘To have such knowledge of such a thing [as Egypt] is to dominate it, to have authority over it…since we know it and it exists, in a sense, as we know it‘ (1978:32). The premises of Balfour‘s speech demonstrate very clearly how knowledge and dominance go hand in hand:

England knows Egypt; Egypt is what England knows; England knows that Egypt cannot have self-government; England confirms that by occupying Egypt; for the Egyptians, Egypt is what England has occupied and now governs; foreign occupation therefore becomes ̳the very basis‘ of contemporary Egyptian civilization. (1978:34)

But to see Orientalism as simply a rationalization of colonial rule is to ignore the fact that colonialism was justified in advance by Orientalism (1978:39). The division of the world into East and West had been centuries in the making and expressed the fundamental binary division on which all dealing with the Orient was based. But one side had the power to determine what the reality of both East and West might be. Knowledge of the Orient, because it was generated out of this cultural strength, ‘in a sense creates the Orient, the Oriental and his world‘ (1978:40). With this assertion we come right to the heart of Orientalism , and consequently to the source of much of the controversy it has provoked. To Said, the Orient and the Oriental are direct constructions of the various disciplines by which they are known by Europeans. This appears, on the one hand, to narrow down an extremely complex European phenomenon to a simple question of power and imperial relations, but, on the other, to provide no room for Oriental self-representations.

Said points out that the upsurge in Orientalist study coincided with the period of unparalleled European expansion: from 1815 to 1914. His emphasis on its political nature can be seen in his focus on the beginnings of modern Orientalism: not with William Jones‘s disruption of linguistic orthodoxy, but in the Napoleonic invasion of Egypt in 1798, ‘which was in many ways the very model of a truly scientific appropriation of one culture by another, apparently stronger one‘ (1978:42). But the crucial fact was that Orientalism, in all its many tributaries, began to impose limits upon thought about the Orient. Even powerful imaginative writers such as Gustav Flaubert, Gerard de Nerval or Sir Walter Scott were constrained in what they could either experience or say about the Orient. For ‘Orientalism was ultimately a political vision of reality whose structure promoted the difference between the familiar (Europe, the West, “us”) and the strange (Orient, the East, “them”)’ (1978:43). It worked this way because the intellectual accomplishments of Orientalist discourse served the interests, and were managed by the vast hierarchical web, of imperial power.

Central to the emergence of the discourse is the imaginative existence of something called ‘the Orient‘, which comes into being within what Said describes as an ‘imaginative geography‘ because it is unlikely that we might develop a discipline called ‘Occidental studies‘. Quite simply, the idea of an Orient exists to define the European. ‘[O]ne big division, as between West and Orient, leads to other smaller ones‘ (1978:58) and the experiences of writers, travellers, soldiers, statesmen, from Herodotus and Alexander the Great on, become ‘the lenses through which the Orient is experienced, and they shape the language, perception and form of the encounter between East and West‘ (1978:58). What holds these experiences together is the shared sense of something ‘other‘, which is named ‘the Orient‘. This analysis of the binary nature of Orientalism has been the source of a great deal of criticism of the book, because it appears to suggest that there is one Europe or one West (one ‘us’) that constructs the Orient. But if we see this homogenisation as the way in which the discourse of Orientalism simplifies the world, at least by implication, rather than the way the world is; the way a general attitude can link various disciplines and intellectual tributaries despite their different subject matter and modes of operation, we may begin to understand the discursive power of this pervasive habit of thinking and doing called Orientalism.

The way we come to understand that ‘other‘ named ‘the Orient‘ in this binary and stereotypical way can be elaborated in terms of the metaphor of theatre. Where the idea of Orientalism as a learned field suggests an enclosed space, the idea of representation is a theatrical one: the Orient is the stage on which the whole East is confined.

On this stage will appear figures whose role it is to represent the larger whole from which they emanate. The Orient then seems to be, not an unlimited extension beyond the familiar European world, but rather a closed field, a theatrical stage affixed to Europe. (1978:63)

In this way certain images represent what is otherwise an impossibly diffuse entity (1978:68). They are also characters who conform to certain typical characteristics. Thus, Orientalism

shares with magic and with mythology the self-containing, self-reinforcing character of a closed system, in which objects are what they are because they are what they are, for once, for all time, for ontological reasons that no empirical material can either dislodge or alter. (1978:70)

Imaginative geography legitimates a vocabulary, a representative discourse peculiar to the understanding of the Orient that becomes the way in which the Orient is known. Orientalism thus becomes a form of ‘radical realism‘ by which an aspect of the Orient is fixed with a word or phrase ‘which then is considered either to have acquired, or more simply be, reality’ (1978:72).

The focus of Said‘s analysis is provided by what he sees as the close link between the upsurge in Orientalism and the rise in European imperial dominance during the nineteenth century. The political orientation of his analysis can be seen by the importance he gives to Napoleon‘s invasion of Egypt in 1798. Although not the beginning of the Orientalism that swept Europe early in the century, Napoleon‘s project demonstrated the most conscious marriage of academic knowledge and political ambition. Certainly the decision by Warren Hastings, Governor-General of India in the 1770s, to conduct the Indian court system on the basis of Sanskrit law paved the way for the discoveries of William Jones, who helped translate the Sanskrit. This demonstrated that knowledge of any kind is always situated and given force by political reality. But Napoleon‘s tactics—persuading the Egyptian population that he was fighting on behalf of Islam rather than against it —utilizing as he did all the available knowledge of the Koran and Islamic society that could be mustered by French scholars, comprehensively demonstrated the strategic and tactical power of knowing.

Napoleon gave his deputy Kleber strict instructions after he left always to administer Egypt through the Orientalists and the religious Islamic leaders whom they could win over (1978:82). According to Said, the consequences of this expedition were profound. ‘Quite literally, the occupation gave birth to the entire modern experience of the Orient as interpreted from within the universe of discourse founded by Napoleon in Egypt‘ (1978:87). After Napoleon, says Said, the very language of Orientalism changed radically. ‘Its descriptive realism was upgraded and became not merely a style of representation but a language, indeed a means of creation‘ (1978:87), a symbol of which was the immensely ambitious construction of the Suez Canal. Claims such as these show why Said‘s argument is so compelling, and why it caught the imagination of critics in the 1970s. Closer inspection would reveal that much of the most intensive Oriental scholarship was carried out in countries such as Germany, which had few colonial possessions. Wider analysis might also reveal that various styles of representation emerged within Orientalist fields. But Napoleon‘s expedition gave an unmistakable direction to the work of Orientalists that was to have a continuing legacy, not only in European and Middle Eastern history but in world history as well.

Ultimately, the power and unparalleled productive capacity of Orientalism came about because of an emphasis on textuality, a tendency to engage reality within the framework of knowledge gained from previously written texts. Orientalism was a dense palimpsest of writings which purported to engage directly with their subject but which were in fact responding to, and building upon, writings that had gone before. This textual attitude extends to the present day, so that

if Arab Palestinians oppose Israeli settlement and occupation of their lands, then that is merely ‘the return of Islam,‘ or, as a renowned contemporary Orientalist defines it, Islamic opposition to non-Islamic peoples, a principle of Islam enshrined in the seventh century. (1978:107)

THE DISCOURSE OF ORIENTALISM

Orientalism is best viewed in Foucaultian terms as a discourse: a manifestation of power/knowledge. Without examining Orientalism as a discourse, says Said, it is not possible to understand ‘the enormously systematic discipline by which European culture was able to manage—and even produce—the Orient politically, sociologically, militarily, ideologically, scientifically, and imaginatively during the post-Enlightenment period‘ (1978:3).

Following on from the notion of discourse we saw earlier (p. 14), colonial discourse is a system of statements that can be made about colonies and colonial peoples, about colonising powers and about the relationship between these two. It is the system of knowledge and belief about the world within which acts of colonisation take place. Although it is generated within the society and cultures of the colonisers, it becomes that discourse within which the colonised may also come to see themselves (as, for example, when Africans adopt the imperial view of themselves as ‘intuitive‘ and ’emotional‘, asserting a distinctiveness from the ̳rational‘ and ‘unemotional‘ Europeans). At the very least it creates a deep conflict in the consciousness of the colonised because of its clash with other knowledges about the world.

As a discourse, Orientalism is ascribed the authority of academics, institutions and governments, and such authority raises the discourse to a level of importance and prestige that guarantees its identification with ‘truth‘. In time, the knowledge and reality created by the Orientalist discipline produces a discourse ‘whose material presence or weight, not the originality of a given author, is really responsible for the texts produced out of it‘ (1978:94). By means of this discourse, Said argues, Western cultural institutions are responsible for the creation of those ‘others‘, the Orientals, whose very difference from the Occident helps establish that binary opposition by which Europe‘s own identity can be established. The underpinning of such a demarcation is a line between the Orient and the Occident that is less a fact of nature than it is a fact of human production‘ (Said1985:2). It is the geographical imagination that is central to the construction of entities such as the ‘Orient‘. It requires the maintenance of rigid boundaries in order to differentiate between the Occident and the Orient. Hence, through this process, they are able to ‘Orientalise‘ the region.

An integral part of Orientalism, of course, is the relationship of power between the Occident and the Orient, in which the balance is weighted heavily in favour of the former. Such power is connected intimately with the construction of knowledge about the Orient. It occurs because the knowledge of ‘subject races‘ or ‘Orientals‘ makes their management easy and profitable; ‘knowledge gives power, more power requires more knowledge, and so on in an increasingly profitable dialectic of information and control‘ (1978:36).

The knowledge of the Orient created by and embodied within the discourse of Orientalism serves to construct an image of the Orient and the Orientals as subservient and subject to domination by the Occident. Knowledge of the Orient, because generated out of strength, says Said, in a sense creates the Orient, the Oriental and his world.

In Cromer‘s and Balfour‘s language, the Oriental is depicted as something one judges (as in a court of law), something one studies and depicts (as in a curriculum), something one disciplines (as in a school or prison), something one illustrates (as in a zoological manual). The point is that in each case the Oriental is contained and represented by dominating frameworks. (1978:40)

The creation of the Orient as the ‘other‘ is necessary so that the Occident can define itself and strengthen its own identity by invoking such a juxtaposition.

The Orientalist representation has been reinforced not only by academic disciplines such as anthropology, history and linguistics but also by the ‘Darwinian theses on survival and natural selection’ (1978:227). Hence, from an Orientalist perspective, the study of the Orient has been always from an Occidental or Western point of view. To the Westerner, according to Said,

the Oriental was always like some aspect of the West; to some German Romantics, for example, Indian religion was essentially an Oriental version of Germano-Christian pantheism. Yet the Orientalist makes it his work to be always converting the Orient from something into something else: he does this for himself, for the sake of his culture. (1978:67)

This encoding and comparison of the Orient with the West ultimately ensures that the Oriental culture and perspective is viewed as a deviation, a perversion, and thus is accorded an inferior status.

An essential feature of the discourse of Orientalism is the objectification of both the Orient and the Oriental. They are treated as objects that can be scrutinised and understood, and this objectification is confirmed in the very term ‘Orient‘, which covers a geographical area and a range of populations many times larger and many times more diverse than Europe. Such objectification entails the assumption that the Orient is essentially monolithic, with an unchanging history, while the Occident is dynamic, with an active history. In addition, the Orient and the Orientals are seen to be passive, non-participatory subjects of study.

This construction, however, has a distinctly political dimension in that Western knowledge inevitably entails political significance. This was nowhere better exemplified than in the rise of Oriental studies and the emergence of Western imperialism. The Englishman in India or Egypt in the latter nineteenth century took an interest in those countries that was founded on their status as British colonies. This may seem quite different, suggests Said, ‘from saying that all academic knowledge about India and Egypt is somehow tinged and impressed with, violated by, the gross political fact—and yet that is what I am saying in this study of Orientalism‘ (1978:11). The reason Said can say this is because of his conviction of the worldliness of the discourse: ‘no production of knowledge in the human sciences can ever ignore or disclaim its author‘s involvement as a human subject in his own circumstances‘ (1978:11). The idea that academic knowledge is ‘tinged‘, ‘impressed with‘, or ‘violated by‘ political and military force is not to suggest, as Dennis Porter supposes (1983), that the hegemonic effect of Orientalist discourse does not operate by ‘consent‘. Rather, it is to suggest that the apparently morally neutral pursuit of knowledge is, in the colonialist context, deeply inflected with the ideological assumptions of imperialism. ‘Knowledge‘ is always a matter of representation, and representation a process of giving concrete form to ideological concepts, of making certain signifiers stand for signifieds. The power that underlies these representations cannot be divorced from the operations of political force, even though it is a different kind of power, more subtle, more penetrating and less visible.

A power imbalance exists, then, not only in the most obvious characteristics of imperialism, in its ‘brute political, economic, and military rationales‘ (1978:12), but also, and most hegemonically, in cultural discourse. It is in the cultural sphere that the dominant hegemonic project of Orientalist studies, used to propagate the aims of imperialism, can be discerned. Said‘s methodology therefore is embedded in what he terms ̳textualism‘, which allows him to envisage the Orient as a textual creation. In Orientalist discourse, the affiliations of the text compel it to produce the West as a site of power and a centre distinctly demarcated from the ‘other‘ as the object of knowledge and, inevitably, subordination. This hidden political function of the Orientalist text is a feature of its worldliness and Said‘s project is to focus on the establishment of the Orient as a textual construct. He is not interested in analysing what lies hidden in the Orientalist text, but in showing how the Orientalist ‘makes the Orient speak, describes the Orient, renders its mysteries plain for and to the West‘ (1978:20–1).

The issue of representation is crucial to understanding discourses within which knowledge is constructed, because it is questionable, says Said, whether a true representation is ever possible (1978:272). If all representations are embedded in the language, culture and institutions of the representer, ‘then we must be prepared to accept the fact that a representation is eo ipso implicated, intertwined, embedded, inter-woven with a great many other things besides the ‘truth‘ which is itself a representation‘ (1978:272). The belief that representations such as those we find in books correspond to the real world amounts to what Said calls a ‘textual attitude‘. He suggests that what French philosopher Voltaire (1694– 1778) in Candide and Spanish novelist Cervantes (1547–1616) in Don Quixote satirised was the assumption that the ̳swarming, unpredictable, and problematic mess in which human beings live can be understood on the basis of what books—texts—say‘ (1978:93). This is precisely what occurs when the Orientalist text is held to signify, to represent the truth: the Orient is rendered silent and its reality is revealed by the Orientalist. Since the Orientalist text offers a familiarity, even intimacy, with a distant and exotic reality, the texts themselves are accorded enormous status and accrue greater importance than the objects they seek to describe. Said argues that ‘such texts can create not only knowledge but also the very reality they appear to describe‘ (1978:94). Consequently, it is the texts that create and describe the reality of the Orient, given that the Orientals themselves are prohibited from speaking.

The latest phase of Orientalism corresponds with the displacement of France and Britain on the world stage by the United States. Despite the shifting of the centre of power and the consequent change in Orientalising strategies, the discourse of Orientalism, in its three general modes, remains secure. In this phase, the Arab Muslim has come to occupy a central place within American popular images as well as in the social sciences. Said argues that this was to a large extent made possible by the ‘transference of a popular anti-Semitic animus from a Jewish to an Arab target…since the figure was essentially the same‘ (1978:286). The dominance of the social sciences after the Second World War meant that the mantle of Orientalism was passed to the social sciences. These social scientists ensured that the region was ‘conceptually emasculated, reduced to “attitudes”, “trends”, statistics: in short dehumanized‘ (1978:291). Orientalism, then, in its different phases, is a Eurocentric discourse that constructs the ‘Orient‘ by the accumulated knowledge of generations of scholars and writers who are secure in the power of their ‘superior‘ wisdom.

It is not Said‘s intention merely to document the excesses of Orientalism (which he does very successfully) but to stress the need for an alternative, better form of scholarship. He recognises that there are a lot of individual scholars engaged in producing such knowledge. Yet he is concerned about the ‘guild tradition‘ of Orientalism, which has the capacity to wear down most scholars. He urges continued vigilance in fighting the dominance of Orientalism. The answer for Said is to be ‘sensitive to what is involved in representation, in studying the Other, in racial thinking, in unthinking and uncritical acceptance of authority and authoritative ideas, in the socio-political role of intellectuals, in the great value of skeptical critical consciousness‘ (1978:327). Here the paramount obligation of the intellectual is to resist the attractions of the ‘theological‘ position of those implicated in the tradition of Orientalist discourse, and to emphasise a ‘secular‘ desire to speak truth to power, to question and to oppose.

Key Theories of Edward Said
Edward Said’s Orientalism

Works cited Abaza, M. and Stauth, G. (1990) ‘Occidental reason, Orientalism, Islamic fundamentalism:A critique’, in Martin Albrow and Elizabeth King (eds) Globalization, Knowledge andSociety, London: Sage. Adams, P. (1997) ‘Interview with Edward Said’, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 17September. al-Azm, S.J. (1981) ‘Orientalism and Orientalism in reverse’, Khamsin 8: 9–10. Behdad, A. (1994) ‘Orientalism after Orientalism’,L’Esprit Créateur 34(2): 1–11. ——(1994a) Belated Travelers: Orientalism in the Age of Colonial Dissolution, Durham, NC:Duke University Press. Bhatnagar, R. (1986) ‘Uses and limits of Foucault: A study of the theme of origins inEdward Said’s Orientalism’, Social Scientist (Trivandrum) 158: 3–22. Breckenridge, C. and Van der Veer, P. (eds) (1993) Orientalism and the PostcolomalPredicament: Perspectives on South Asia, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Brennan, T. (1992) ‘Places of mind, occupied lands: Edward Said and philology’, in Michael Sprinker (ed.) Edward Said: A Critical Reader, Oxford: Blackwell. Carrier, James (ed.) (1995) Occidentalism: Images of the West, Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress. Clifford, J. (1988) ‘On Orientalism’, in The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth CenturyEthnography, Literature and Art, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Kabbani, Rana (1986) Europe’s Myth of Empire, Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Lewis, B. (1982) ‘Orientalism: An exchange’, New York Review of Books 29(13): 46–8. ——(1982a) ‘The question of Orientalism’, New York Review of Books 29(11): 49–56. ——(1993) Islam and the West, New York: Oxford University Press. Lewis, R. (1995) Gendering Orientalism: Race, Femininity and Representation, New York:Routledge. Little, D. (1979) ‘Three Arabic critiques of Orientalism’, Muslim World 69(2): 118–21, 127,130. Majid, A. (1996) ‘Can the postcolonial critic speak? Orientalism and the Rushdie affair’,Cultural Critique, winter 1995–6: 5–42. Mani, L. and Frankenberg, R. (1985) ‘The challenge of Orientalism’, Economy and Society14: 174–92. Pathak, Z., Sengupta, S. and Purkayastha, S. (1991) ‘The prisonhouse of Orientalism’,Textual Practice 5(2): 195–218. Porter, D. (1983) ‘Orientalism and its problems’, in Peter Hulme, Margaret Iversen andDianne Loxley (eds) The Politics of Theory, Colchester: University of Essex.

Source: Ashcroft, Bill, and D. Pal S. Ahluwalia. Edward Said. Routledge, 2009.

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Orientalism

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Said describes Orientalism as a style of writing and thought about the Orient. According to Said, what are the main characteristics of this style? What are its primary goals?

According to Said, what comprises the figure of the “Oriental” in the Orientalist imagination? What are the Oriental’s recurring features throughout history? 

Said asserts that the scope of Orientalism is broad, which is why Western scholarship has devoted much energy throughout history to contain it through formalized study. Discuss how Said’s own methodology for critiquing Orientalism in his book considers its broad scope. How is he able to frame and organize the idea of Orientalism in this work? 

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Transcultural Orientalism: Re-Writing the Orient from Latin America and the Philippines

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  • Irene Villaescusa Illán 4  

Part of the book series: Historical and Cultural Interconnections between Latin America and Asia ((HCILAA))

This chapter proposes transcultural orientalism as a term to explain the orientalisation of the Philippines in the poetry of Jesús Balmori. Drawing from Edward Said’s seminal work Orientalism and Araceli Tinajero’s consideration of orientalism in Hispanic modernismo, it shows that Balmori’s poems perform a form of Filipino (self)orientalism in three ways: first, by revealing a discourse of cultural and racial differentiation of the mixed heritage of the Philippines (such as the Malay and Hispanic ancestry); second, by employing literary techniques borrowed from modernismo to exoticise that particular heritage; and third, by employing that same heritage as a tool of national affirmation. By reading Balmori’s poems through the lens of transcultural orientalism , the chapter thus illustrates how the poet appropriates literary techniques and oriental motifs from various cultures (Hispanic, French, Filipino and Japanese) to write the Philippines as an exotic place in the Orient by virtue of both its Western and Eastern influences.

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Villaescusa Illán, I. (2020). Transcultural Orientalism: Re-Writing the Orient from Latin America and the Philippines. In: Transcultural Nationalism in Hispano-Filipino Literature . Historical and Cultural Interconnections between Latin America and Asia. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-51599-7_2

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Edward W Said, Orientalism - Summary and Critical Reflection

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Orientalism and The Postcolonial Predicament: Perspectives on South Asia New Cultural Studies

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Representation and Its Relevance for Political Theory in Postcolonial Constellations in The Point of View of Edward Said, Founder of Orientalism

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Asian American Studies

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On this page, you will find lists of journal articles, books, and multimedia resources categorized by central topics and themes in Asian American Studies. These lists can get you started on a research project focused on one of the topics below. Remember to check out which works these resources cite; they could be helpful for your project too!

  • Theoretical Frameworks & Methods
  • Model Minority Myth
  • Yellow Peril/Forever Foreign Stereotype
  • Immigration, Migration, & Exclusion
  • Transnationalism
  • Media & Popular Culture
  • Interracial Solidarity
  • Asian Americans in the Midwest

Journal Articles

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  • Lee, Stacey J. “Behind the Model-Minority Stereotype: Voices of High- and Low-Achieving Asian American Students.”  Anthropology & Education Quarterly  25, no. 4 (1994): 413–429.
  • Park, Michael, Yoonsun Choi, Hyung Chol Yoo, Miwa Yasui, and David Takeuchi. “Racial Stereotypes and Asian American Youth Paradox.”  Journal of Youth and Adolescence  50, no. 12 (2021): 2374–2393.
  • Poon, OiYan, Dian Squire, Corinne Kodama, Ajani Byrd, Jason Chan, Lester Manzano, Sara Furr, and Devita Bishundat. “A Critical Review of the Model Minority Myth in Selected Literature on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in Higher Education.”  Review of Educational Research  86, no. 2 (2016): 469–502.
  • Hsu, Madeline Y, and Ellen D Wu. “‘Smoke and Mirrors’: Conditional Inclusion, Model Minorities, and the Pre-1965 Dismantling of Asian Exclusion.”  Journal of American Ethnic History  34, no. 4 (2015): 43–65.
  • Cheng, Cindy I-Fen. “The Invention of the Model Minority.” In The Routledge Handbook of Asian American Studies, 299–316. Routledge, 2017.

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  • Lin Wu, and Nhu Nguyen. “From Yellow Peril to Model Minority and Back to Yellow Peril.”  AERA Open  8 (2022).
  • Lee, Erika. “The ‘Yellow Peril’ and Asian Exclusion in the Americas.”  Pacific Historical Review  76, no. 4 (2007): 537–562.
  • Siu, Lok, and Claire Chun. “Yellow Peril and Techno-Orientalism in the Time of Covid-19: Racialized Contagion, Scientific Espionage, and Techno-Economic Warfare.”  Journal of Asian American Studies  23, no. 3 (2020): 421–440.

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  • Yang, Philip Q. “A Theory of Asian Immigration to the United States.”  Journal of Asian American Studies  13, no. 1 (2010): 1–34.
  • Tran, Van C., and Natasha K. Warikoo. “Asian American Perspectives on Immigration Policy.”  RSF : Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences  7, no. 2 (2021): 154–177.
  • Lee, Erika. “A Part and Apart: Asian American and Immigration History.”  Journal of American Ethnic History  34, no. 4 (2015): 28–42.
  • Park, Saemyi. “Identifying Asian American Attitudes Toward Immigration: Testing Theories of Acculturation, Group Consciousness, and Context Effects.”  Journal of Ethnic and Cultural Studies  8, no. 1 (2021): 163–189.

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  • Lee, Erika, and Naoko Shibusawa. "Guest Editor's Introduction: What is Transnational Asian American History?: Recent Trends and Challenges."  Journal of Asian American Studies  8, no. 3 (2005): vii-xvii.
  • Liu, Haiming, and Lianlian Lin. "Food, Culinary Identity, and Transnational Culture: Chinese Restaurant Business in Southern California."  Journal of Asian American Studies  12, no. 2 (2009): 135-162.
  • Rodriguez, Robyn Magalit. "Introduction to "Guests and Strangers: Asian Workers in Transnational Perspective"."  Journal of Asian American Studies  22, no. 1 (2019): vii-xvi.
  • Lamb, Sarah. "Intimacy in a Transnational Era: The Remaking of Aging among Indian Americans."  Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies  11, no. 3 (2002): 299-330.

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  • Tajima-Peña, Renee. "Toward a Third Wave: Why Media Matters in Asian American Studies."  Journal of Asian American Studies  17, no. 1 (2014): 94-99.
  • Nishime, LeiLani. "Whitewashing Yellow Futures in  Ex Machina ,  Cloud Atlas , and  Advantageous : Gender, Labor, and Technology in Sci-fi Film."  Journal of Asian American Studies  20, no. 1 (2017): 29-49. 
  • Tabares, Leland. "Professional Amateurs: Asian American Content Creators in YouTube’s Digital Economy."  Journal of Asian American Studies  22, no. 3 (2019): 387-417.
  • Jeon, Joseph Jonghyun. "Breakfast at Kuniyoshi’s: Photography, Forgetting, and Racial Form."  Journal of Asian American Studies  22, no. 2 (2019): 235-262.
  • Chin, Soo-Young, Peter X. Feng, and Josephine D Lee. "Asian American Cultural Production."  Journal of Asian American Studies  3, no. 3 (2000): 269-282.

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  • Hong, Grace Kyungwon. “Comparison and Coalition in the Age of Black Lives Matter.”  Journal of Asian American Studies  20, no. 2 (2017): 273–278.
  • Wong, Deborah. "Guest Editor's Introduction: A/A: African American-Asian American Cross-Identifications."  Journal of Asian American Studies  5, no. 1 (2002): 5-11.
  • Ponce, Martin Joseph. "Toward a Queer Afro-Asian Anti-Imperialism:  Black Amerasians and U.S. Empire in Asian American Literature ."  Journal of Asian American Studies  20, no. 2 (2017): 283-287. 
  • Fojas, Camilla. "New Frontiers of Asian and Latino America in Popular Culture:  Mixed-Race Intimacies and the Global Police State in  Miami Vice  and  Rush Hour 2."  Journal of Asian American Studies  14, no. 3 (2011): 417-434.
  • Bhardwaj, Maya. "Queering Diasporic Desi Solidarity: South Asian Activism in US and UK Multiracial Social Movements."  Journal of Asian American Studies  25, no. 1 (2022): 95-123.

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  • Fujino, Diane C. "Who Studies the Asian American Movement?: A Historiographical Analysis."  Journal of Asian American Studies  11, no. 2 (2008): 127-169.
  • Tajima-Pena, Renee. “Yuri Kochiyama and the Politics of Love.”  Amerasia Journal  40, no. 3 (2014): 21–27.
  • Yellow Horse, Aggie J., Karen J. Leong, and Karen Kuo. "Introduction: Viral Racisms: Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders Respond to COVID-19."  Journal of Asian American Studies  23, no. 3 (2020): 313-318.
  • Osajima, Keith. "Replenishing the Ranks: Raising Critical Consciousness Among Asian Americans."  Journal of Asian American Studies  10, no. 1 (2007): 59-83.
  • Kurashige, Scott. "Pan-ethnicity and Community Organizing: Asian Americans United's Campaign against Anti-Asian Violence."  Journal of Asian American Studies  3, no. 2 (2000): 163-190.

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  • Trieu, Monica M. “The ‘Isolated Ethnics’ and ‘Everyday Ethnics’: Region, Identity, and the Second-Generation Midwest Asian American Experience.”  National Identities  20, no. 2 (2018): 175–195.
  • Lee, Erika. “Asian American Studies in the Midwest: New Questions, Approaches, and Communities.”  Journal of Asian American Studies  12, no. 3 (2009): 247–273.
  • Rodríguez, Noreen Naseem. “‘This Is Why Nobody Knows Who You Are:’ (Counter)Stories of Southeast Asian Americans in the Midwest.”  The Review of Education/Pedagogy/Cultural Studies  42, no. 2 (2020): 157–174.

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Immigration's Effect on US Wages and Employment Redux

In this article we revive, extend and improve the approach used in a series of influential papers written in the 2000s to estimate how changes in the supply of immigrant workers affected natives' wages in the US. We begin by extending the analysis to include the more recent years 2000-2022. Additionally, we introduce three important improvements. First, we introduce an IV that uses a new skill-based shift-share for immigrants and the demographic evolution for natives, which we show passes validity tests and has reasonably strong power. Second, we provide estimates of the impact of immigration on the employment-population ratio of natives to test for crowding out at the national level. Third, we analyze occupational upgrading of natives in response to immigrants. Using these estimates, we calculate that immigration, thanks to native-immigrant complementarity and college skill content of immigrants, had a positive and significant effect between +1.7 to +2.6\% on wages of less educated native workers, over the period 2000-2019 and no significant wage effect on college educated natives. We also calculate a positive employment rate effect for most native workers. Even simulations for the most recent 2019-2022 period suggest small positive effects on wages of non-college natives and no significant crowding out effects on employment.

We are grateful for Rebecca Brough for her research assistance and suggestions. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

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Orientalism Research Paper

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The term ‘Orientalism’ underwent a revolutionary shift in meaning after the publication of Edward Said’s Orientalism in 1978. Before Said, the term conveyed several meanings, all of them quite affirmative of the Orient and of those who pursued knowledge of Oriental culture. In one meaning, Orientalism denoted an academic specialization—the study of the Orient, which, in widest compass, included the Near East, the Indian subcontinent, and East Asia. The term also demarcated a Western art, music, and literary style influenced by Eastern esthetics and philosophy, as, for example, to be found in the New England Transcendentalists in the USA. Most positively, it referenced the appreciation by Europeans of the great learning of the East. This appreciation and respect was in evidence, for example, among eighteenth-century British colonial administrators in Eastern India, who celebrated the sacred philosophic writings they uncovered from Bengal’s ‘golden’ period, that is, from the period of Hindu rule before the Muslim conquest. In the nineteenth century, European affirmation of the Orient was expressed, for example, in Theosophy’s appreciation for the religious teachings of Eastern ‘Mahatmas’ (‘great souls’) (Campbell 1980). In the same century, Edward Carpenter praised the Orient for what today we would call alternative sexualities (Carpenter 1914). Nineteenth-century Orientalism also included scholarly research, such as that of Max Muller, in philology and philosophy that pinpointed the Orient, especially India, as the ultimate source of the Indo-Aryans and, subsequently, the Greek and Roman civilizations (Schwab 1984, Muller 1883). If politics adhered to the term in any way, it was in the supposition that Orientalists respected and conserved the cultural traditions they studied.

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Get 10% off with 24start discount code, 1. orientalism after said.

Edward Said, a professor of comparative literature at Columbia University in New York and a major commentator on Near Eastern politics, especially the Palestinian question, radically altered the meaning of Orientalism. His book Orientalism questioned the reality of the place called the ‘Orient’ and turned Orientalism into a pejorative term that carried political meanings. ‘Orientalism’ acquired, so to speak, permanent quotation marks around it to indicate that it can never again be used in an unself-conscious, nonreflexive, and uncritical way. After Said, to be called an ‘Orientalist’ is very often not a compliment, it is an accusation. Drawing mainly on material from the Near East (but with implications far beyond), Said argued that ‘Orientalism’ is something very different from what its adherents claim it to be, and that it functions to create inequalities of which they might not have been aware. The literary, philological, and historical studies of the Orient, the travel accounts, the depictions of its religions and arts—these, Said says, pretend to reflect or represent the Orient when, in fact, they construct it—and the image of it they build up is of a place different from and inferior to the West. The Orient is thereby created as feminine (and, consequently, weak and uncourageous), childish, superstitious, traditional (and therefore backward), despotic, otherworldly (and therefore unchanging), and sensual (and therefore passionate, not rational). The result is a Western portrayal of the East that dominates it by claiming to truly represent it.

For Said, the Orient fashioned in Western scholarship is complicit with European colonialism. Both colonialism and ‘Orientalism’ exercise empire over the societies of the Near East, India, and East Asia. The exact relationship between colonialism and Orientalism is unclear in Said’s volume, as Aijaz Ahmad (1992) has noted. Said can be read to say either that the West’s image of the Orient preceded and facilitated colonial conquest or that colonialism and Orientalism developed in conjunction and were mutually supportive.

Said thus made the Orient disappear as a real object or place, and appear only as a fabrication of the West. At times, Said seems to allow that a real Orient exists, and at other times he seems to deny it (as Clifford 1988 points out), but the salient issue for Said is that ‘Orientalism’ exists—and dominates. Similarly, although Said has received criticism for seeming to deny entirely that Western scholars might represent the Orient truly, his important message is that the representations are stereotyped and conform to a customary discourse that extends over centuries.

Said’s Orientalism presents a critical viewpoint and an interpretive methodology that initiates the approach often called ‘postcolonial studies’ in today’s social science and humanities. In this approach, determining who controls knowledge and representation and who constructs representations in colonial situations is just as important as determining who owns the productive resources or who exercises the powers of government.

2. The Postcolonial Critique

Important criticisms, revisions, and elaborations of Said’s Orientalism have developed from such postcolonial studies, especially as geographical areas beyond the Near East have come under scrutiny. One major revision has been to bring a strong sense of history and process over time into Said’s basically literary and timeless approach. Said often presents Orientalism as nearly fully formed from its outset and as relatively stable over long periods of time. If ‘Orientalism’ is constructed, however, there must be a building process, and it needs to be chronicled. Tim Mitchell, for example, has provided such a history of how Europeans colonized Egypt in the nineteenth century by importing representations of time, language, texts, the body, and good society. Through this imported knowledge and understanding, they convinced Egyptians that their society and culture were different—as well as inferior (Mitchell 1991). Gauri Visvanathan (1989) traces the history of English education in India, and shows how Indian students learned in their textbooks and classrooms that Western culture was superior. Because studies like these show Orientalism as a historical process rather than a finished state, they break with Said’s understanding of it as an unbreachable discourse (a position he takes from Foucault). They also, however, recover his concept for meaningful historical analysis.

Other critics fault Said for presenting the West as monolithic and unchanging—in effect, he is said to represent the West in just as stereotyped and politicized a manner as he chastises Orientalists for doing to the East (see Clifford 1988 and Ahmad 1992).

One problem with Said’s stereotype of European Orientalism is that it does not distinguish between positive images of the East and negative ones. Although both types of images stereotype the Orient, the positive images often served Europeans as means by which to criticize their own society. These positive images also often allowed nationalists in India and elsewhere to combat the negative stereotypes of their societies (Fox 1992).

3. Orientalism’s Consequences

The other problem with Said’s stereotypic portrayal of Europe is that he does not see the consequences for Europe itself of the construction of Orientalism. Ashis Nandy (1983) has augmented Said’s approach by detailing the effects of colonialism, especially the effects of the representation made of the colonized, on European culture. Nandy argues (without using Said’s terminology) that the construction of images of the colonized, such as Orientalism, had profound effects on Europeans themselves. Because they stereotyped the East as feminine, passive, and cowardly, Europeans had to emphasize a violent, active, hypermasculinity as their distinctive character, and minimize what Nandy calls the ‘recessive’ feminine, nonviolent, and unaggressive elements. Nandy therefore adds two points to the analysis of ‘Orientalism’: that such constructions have consequences even for those who have the power to construct them; and that the object of Orientalism—that is, the Oriental—is involved in an intimate, if also unequal, relationship with the European perpetrator of Orientalism.

Nandy’s second point highlights the greatest limitation in Said’s initial presentation of Orientalism: he did not explore the effects of European Orientalism on the Orientals themselves. This European discourse had profound effects on the self-image of the people whom it referenced. They often came to think of themselves along the same Orientalist lines as did Europeans: as inferior and backward. Sometimes, therefore, they adopted a negative self-image, in keeping with Said’s understanding of the power of European representations. At other times, however, Orientalism could be the source of resistance to European domination. For example, Gandhi took many of the negative stereotypes about India incorporated into Orientalism and turned them into positive attributes (although they were still stereotypes): Oriental ‘otherworldliness’ became Eastern ‘spirituality’ and ‘passivity’ became ‘nonviolence’ (Fox 1989). Such reversals also indicate that Orientalist discourse as a vehicle of domination can be turned back on itself.

Said’s Orientalism signals an important epistemic break in Western social science and humanities, as is evident by the further research it inspired. His overall analytic remains an important entry point for under-standing the power of representations and the domination embedded in European conceptions of other places.

Bibliography:

  • Ahmad A 1992 In Theory: Classes Nations and Literatures. London, Verso
  • Campbell B F 1980 Ancient Wisdom Revived: A History of the Theosophical Movement. University of California Press, Berkeley, CA
  • Carpenter E 1914 Intermediate Types Among Primitive Folk: A Study in Social Evolution. Allen & Unwin, London
  • Clifford J 1988 On orientalism The Predicament of Culture. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, pp. 255–76
  • Fox R 1989 Gandhian Utopia. Beacon, Boston
  • Fox R 1992 East of Said. In: Sprinker M (ed.) Edward Said, A Critical Reader. Basil Blackwell, London, pp. 144–56
  • Mitchell T 1991 Colonizing Egypt. University of California Press, Berkeley, CA
  • Muller M 1883 India, What Can It Teach Us? J.W. Lovell, New York
  • Nandy A 1983 The Intimate Enemy: Loss and Recovery of Self Under Colonialism. Oxford University Press, Delhi, India
  • Said E 1978 Orientalism, 1st edn. Pantheon Books, New York
  • Schwab R 1984 The Oriental Renaissance: Europe’s Rediscovery of India and the East 1680–1880 [trans. Paterson-Black G, Reinking V]. Columbia University Press, New York
  • Visvanathan G 1989 Masks of Conquest: Literary Study and British Rule in India. Columbia University Press, New York

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Some scientists can't stop using AI to write research papers

If you read about 'meticulous commendable intricacy' there's a chance a boffin had help.

Linguistic and statistical analyses of scientific articles suggest that generative AI may have been used to write an increasing amount of scientific literature.

Two academic papers assert that analyzing word choice in the corpus of science publications reveals an increasing usage of AI for writing research papers. One study , published in March by Andrew Gray of University College London in the UK, suggests at least one percent – 60,000 or more – of all papers published in 2023 were written at least partially by AI.

A second paper published in April by a Stanford University team in the US claims this figure might range between 6.3 and 17.5 percent, depending on the topic.

Both papers looked for certain words that large language models (LLMs) use habitually, such as “intricate,” “pivotal,” and “meticulously." By tracking the use of those words across scientific literature, and comparing this to words that aren't particularly favored by AI, the two studies say they can detect an increasing reliance on machine learning within the scientific publishing community.

research paper topics about orientalism

In Gray's paper, the use of control words like "red," "conclusion," and "after" changed by a few percent from 2019 to 2023. The same was true of other certain adjectives and adverbs until 2023 (termed the post-LLM year by Gray).

In that year use of the words "meticulous," "commendable," and "intricate," rose by 59, 83, and 117 percent respectively, while their prevalence in scientific literature hardly changed between 2019 and 2022. The word with the single biggest increase in prevalence post-2022 was “meticulously”, up 137 percent.

The Stanford paper found similar phenomena, demonstrating a sudden increase for the words "realm," "showcasing," "intricate," and "pivotal." The former two were used about 80 percent more often than in 2021 and 2022, while the latter two were used around 120 and almost 160 percent more frequently respectively.

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The researchers also considered word usage statistics in various scientific disciplines. Computer science and electrical engineering were ahead of the pack when it came to using AI-preferred language, while mathematics, physics, and papers published by the journal Nature, only saw increases of between five and 7.5 percent.

The Stanford bods also noted that authors posting more preprints, working in more crowded fields, and writing shorter papers seem to use AI more frequently. Their paper suggests that a general lack of time and a need to write as much as possible encourages the use of LLMs, which can help increase output.

Potentially the next big controversy in the scientific community

Using AI to help in the research process isn't anything new, and lots of boffins are open about utilizing AI to tweak experiments to achieve better results. However, using AI to actually write abstracts and other chunks of papers is very different, because the general expectation is that scientific articles are written by actual humans, not robots, and at least a couple of publishers consider using LLMs to write papers to be scientific misconduct.

Using AI models can be very risky as they often produce inaccurate text, the very thing scientific literature is not supposed to do. AI models can even fabricate quotations and citations, an occurrence that infamously got two New York attorneys in trouble for citing cases ChatGPT had dreamed up.

"Authors who are using LLM-generated text must be pressured to disclose this or to think twice about whether doing so is appropriate in the first place, as a matter of basic research integrity," University College London’s Gray opined.

The Stanford researchers also raised similar concerns, writing that use of generative AI in scientific literature could create "risks to the security and independence of scientific practice." ®

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Physicists arrange atoms in extremely close proximity

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On top is a green cloud of atoms point up, and on bottom is a blue cloud of atoms pointing down. In between the clouds are lines representing a magnetic field repelling the atoms.

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On top is a green cloud of atoms point up, and on bottom is a blue cloud of atoms pointing down. In between the clouds are lines representing a magnetic field repelling the atoms.

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Proximity is key for many quantum phenomena, as interactions between atoms are stronger when the particles are close. In many quantum simulators, scientists arrange atoms as close together as possible to explore exotic states of matter and build new quantum materials.

They typically do this by cooling the atoms to a stand-still, then using laser light to position the particles as close as 500 nanometers apart — a limit that is set by the wavelength of light. Now, MIT physicists have developed a technique that allows them to arrange atoms in much closer proximity, down to a mere 50 nanometers. For context, a red blood cell is about 1,000 nanometers wide.

The physicists demonstrated the new approach in experiments with dysprosium, which is the most magnetic atom in nature. They used the new approach to manipulate two layers of dysprosium atoms, and positioned the layers precisely 50 nanometers apart. At this extreme proximity, the magnetic interactions were 1,000 times stronger than if the layers were separated by 500 nanometers.

What’s more, the scientists were able to measure two new effects caused by the atoms’ proximity. Their enhanced magnetic forces caused “thermalization,” or the transfer of heat from one layer to another, as well as synchronized oscillations between layers. These effects petered out as the layers were spaced farther apart.

“We have gone from positioning atoms from 500 nanometers to 50 nanometers apart, and there is a lot you can do with this,” says Wolfgang Ketterle, the John D. MacArthur Professor of Physics at MIT. “At 50 nanometers, the behavior of atoms is so much different that we’re really entering a new regime here.”

Ketterle and his colleagues say the new approach can be applied to many other atoms to study quantum phenomena. For their part, the group plans to use the technique to manipulate atoms into configurations that could generate the first purely magnetic quantum gate — a key building block for a new type of quantum computer.

The team has published their results today in the journal Science . The study’s co-authors include lead author and physics graduate student Li Du, along with Pierre Barral, Michael Cantara, Julius de Hond, and Yu-Kun Lu — all members of the MIT-Harvard Center for Ultracold Atoms, the Department of Physics, and the Research Laboratory of Electronics at MIT.

Peaks and valleys

To manipulate and arrange atoms, physicists typically first cool a cloud of atoms to temperatures approaching absolute zero, then use a system of laser beams to corral the atoms into an optical trap.

Laser light is an electromagnetic wave with a specific wavelength (the distance between maxima of the electric field) and frequency. The wavelength limits the smallest pattern into which light can be shaped to typically 500 nanometers, the so-called optical resolution limit. Since atoms are attracted by laser light of certain frequencies, atoms will be positioned at the points of peak laser intensity. For this reason, existing techniques have been limited in how close they can position atomic particles, and could not be used to explore phenomena that happen at much shorter distances.

“Conventional techniques stop at 500 nanometers, limited not by the atoms but by the wavelength of light,” Ketterle explains. “We have found now a new trick with light where we can break through that limit.”

The team’s new approach, like current techniques, starts by cooling a cloud of atoms — in this case, to about 1 microkelvin, just a hair above absolute zero — at which point, the atoms come to a near-standstill. Physicists can then use lasers to move the frozen particles into desired configurations.

Then, Du and his collaborators worked with two laser beams, each with a different frequency, or color, and circular polarization, or direction of the laser’s electric field. When the two beams travel through a super-cooled cloud of atoms, the atoms can orient their spin in opposite directions, following either of the two lasers’ polarization. The result is that the beams produce two groups of the same atoms, only with opposite spins.

Each laser beam formed a standing wave, a periodic pattern of electric field intensity with a spatial period of 500 nanometers. Due to their different polarizations, each standing wave attracted and corralled one of two groups of atoms, depending on their spin. The lasers could be overlaid and tuned such that the distance between their respective peaks is as small as 50 nanometers, meaning that the atoms gravitating to each respective laser’s peaks would be separated by the same 50 nanometers.

But in order for this to happen, the lasers would have to be extremely stable and immune to all external noise, such as from shaking or even breathing on the experiment. The team realized they could stabilize both lasers by directing them through an optical fiber, which served to lock the light beams in place in relation to each other.

“The idea of sending both beams through the optical fiber meant the whole machine could shake violently, but the two laser beams stayed absolutely stable with respect to each others,” Du says.

Magnetic forces at close range

As a first test of their new technique, the team used atoms of dysprosium — a rare-earth metal that is one of the strongest magnetic elements in the periodic table, particularly at ultracold temperatures. However, at the scale of atoms, the element’s magnetic interactions are relatively weak at distances of even 500 nanometers. As with common refrigerator magnets, the magnetic attraction between atoms increases with proximity, and the scientists suspected that if their new technique could space dysprosium atoms as close as 50 nanometers apart, they might observe the emergence of otherwise weak interactions between the magnetic atoms.

“We could suddenly have magnetic interactions, which used to be almost neglible but now are really strong,” Ketterle says.

The team applied their technique to dysprosium, first super-cooling the atoms, then passing two lasers through to split the atoms into two spin groups, or layers. They then directed the lasers through an optical fiber to stabilize them, and found that indeed, the two layers of dysprosium atoms gravitated to their respective laser peaks, which in effect separated the layers of atoms by 50 nanometers — the closest distance that any ultracold atom experiment has been able to achieve.

At this extremely close proximity, the atoms’ natural magnetic interactions were significantly enhanced, and were 1,000 times stronger than if they were positioned 500 nanometers apart. The team observed that these interactions resulted in two novel quantum phenomena: collective oscillation, in which one layer’s vibrations caused the other layer to vibrate in sync; and thermalization, in which one layer transferred heat to the other, purely through magnetic fluctuations in the atoms.

“Until now, heat between atoms could only by exchanged when they were in the same physical space and could collide,” Du notes. “Now we have seen atomic layers, separated by vacuum, and they exchange heat via fluctuating magnetic fields.”

The team’s results introduce a new technique that can be used to position many types of atom in close proximity. They also show that atoms, placed close enough together, can exhibit interesting quantum phenomena, that could be harnessed to build new quantum materials, and potentially, magnetically-driven atomic systems for quantum computers.

“We are really bringing super-resolution methods to the field, and it will become a general tool for doing quantum simulations,” Ketterle says. “There are many variants possible, which we are working on.”

This research was funded, in part, by the National Science Foundation and the Department of Defense.

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  • Wolfgang Ketterle
  • MIT-Harvard Center for Ultracold Atoms
  • Research Laboratory of Electronics
  • Department of Physics

Related Topics

  • Nanoscience and nanotechnology
  • Quantum computing
  • National Science Foundation (NSF)
  • Department of Defense (DoD)

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  1. 101 Orientalism Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

    Orient and Occident: "Orientalism" by Edward Said. In the contemporary world, the West views the East in terms of oil and Islam. Occident reporters and scholars misrepresent the East and, therefore, propagate the notion that it is the moral duty of the […] We will write. a custom essay specifically for you by our professional experts.

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    explains, Orientalism is "the corporate institution for dealing with the Orient - dealing with it by making statements about it, authorizing views of it, describing it, by teaching it, settling it, ruling over it" (Said, 1978, p. 3). Orientalism has shaped our paradigms towards the region and the peoples of the Arab. A distorted

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    true, unmediated sense or a misrepresentation in the sense of a distortion of facts, is the. elimination and silencing of others as capable, speaking subjects. So, while the criticism of Said's vacillating regarding the metaphysics of representation is. valid, the criticism overemphasizes what is at issue for Said.

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