Orientalism

As exemplified by Madame Butterfly, East-West relations have often been expressed as the relations between the masculine, dominant West and the feminine, submissive East. Yet, this binary model does not account for the important role of white women in the construction of Orientalism. Mari Yoshihara's study examines a wide range of white women who were attracted to Japan and China in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century and shows how, through their engagement with Asia, these women found new forms of expression, power, and freedom that were often denied to them in other realms of their lives in America. She demonstrates how white women's attraction to Asia shaped and was shaped by a complex mix of exoticism for the foreign, admiration for the refined, desire for power and control, and love and compassion for the people of Asia. Through concrete historical narratives and careful textual analysis, she examines the ideological context for America's changing discourse about Asia and interrogates the power and appeal--as well as the problems and limitations--of American Orientalism for white women's explorations of their identities. Combining the analysis of race and gender in the United States and the study of U.S.-Asian relations, Yoshihara's work represents the transnational direction of scholarship in American Studies and U.S. history. In addition, this interdisciplinary work brings together diverse materials and approaches, including cultural history, material culture, visual arts, performance studies, and literary analysis.

"Christina Klein takes a fresh, stimulating, and enlightening look at the complex visions of Asia dreamed over the decades by American popular culture. She argues her provocative viewpoints with the verve and flair of a showman, in a book which helps us to see the whole world through new eyes."--David Henry Hwang, author of "M. Butterfly and "Flower Drum Song (2002)

"An extraordinarily interesting study of 'Cold War internationalism.' Klein's brilliant and imaginative reading of such musicals as "South Pacific and "The King and I enables us to see how culture and geopolitics were woven together to transform the Cold War order into today's ethnically diverse and economically interdependent world--within the framework of 'U.S. global expansion.'"--Akira Iriye, Professor of History, Harvard University, and author, "Global Community

This book examines how China has been portrayed in European and North American social and political thought. Such a question immediately evokes the spectre of orientalism and subsequent chapters explore whether the identification of an orientalist project invalidates the knowledge claims of European and North American social and political thought as it evolved from the 18th to the 20th century.

The 'Southern Question' has been a major topic in Italian political, economic and cultural life for a century and more. During the Cold War, it was the justification for heavy government intervention. In contemporary Italy, a major part of the appeal of the Lombard League has been its promise to dissociate the South from the North, even to the point of secession. The South also remains a resonant theme in Italian literature.This interdisciplinary book endeavours to answer the following:· When did people begin to think of the South as a problem?· Who - intellectuals, statisticians, criminologists, political exiles, novelists (among them some important southerners) - contributed to the discourse about the South and why?· Did their view of the South correspond to any sort of reality?· What was glossed over or ignored in the generalized vision of the South as problematic?· What consequences has the 'Question' had in controlling the imaginations and actions of intellectuals and those with political and other forms of power?· What alternative formulations might people create and live by if they were able to escape from the control of the 'Question' and to imagine the political, economic and cultural differences within Italy in some other way?This timely book reveals how Southern Italians have been affected by distorted versions of a complex reality similar to the discourse of 'Orientalism'. In situating the devaluation of Southern Italian culture in relation to the recent emergence of 'anti-mafia' ideology in the South and the threat posed to national unity by the Lombard League, it also illuminates the world's stiff inter-regional competition for investment capital.

Hailed in The New York Times Book Review as "the doyen of Middle Eastern studies," Bernard Lewis has been for half a century one of the West's foremost scholars of Islamic history and culture, the author of over two dozen books, most notably The Arabs in History, The Emergence of Modern Turkey, The Political Language of Islam, and The Muslim Discovery of Europe. Eminent French historian Robert Mantran has written of Lewis's work: "How could one resist being attracted to the books of an author who opens for you the doors of an unknown or misunderstood universe, who leads you within to its innermost domains: religion, ways of thinking, conceptions of power, culture--an author who upsets notions too often fixed, fallacious, or partisan." In Islam and the West, Bernard Lewis brings together in one volume eleven essays that indeed open doors to the innermost domains of Islam. Lewis ranges far and wide in these essays. He includes long pieces, such as his capsule history of the interaction--in war and peace, in commerce and culture--between Europe and its Islamic neighbors, and shorter ones, such as his deft study of the Arabic word watan and what its linguistic history reveals about the introduction of the idea of patriotism from the West. Lewis offers a revealing look at Edward Gibbon's portrait of Muhammad in Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (unlike previous writers, Gibbon saw the rise of Islam not as something separate and isolated, nor as a regrettable aberration from the onward march of the church, but simply as a part of human history); he offers a devastating critique of Edward Said's controversial book, Orientalism; and he gives an account of the impediments to translating from classic Arabic to other languages (the old dictionaries, for one, are packed with scribal errors, misreadings, false analogies, and etymological deductions that pay little attention to the evolution of the language). And he concludes with an astute commentary on the Islamic world today, examining revivalism, fundamentalism, the role of the Shi'a, and the larger question of religious co-existence between Muslims, Christians, and Jews. A matchless guide to the background of Middle East conflicts today, Islam and the West presents the seasoned reflections of an eminent authority on one of the most intriguing and little understood regions in the world.

Much controversy has recently come to surround the status and value of postcolonial theory. In this comprehensive and accessible survey, the author examines the objections that have been raised against postcolonial theory.

'in our era, criticism is not merely a library of secondary aids to the understanding and appreciation of literary texts, but also a rapidly expanding body of knowledge in its own right' David Lodge This new edition of David Lodge's Modern Criticism and Theoryis fully revised and expanded to take account of the developments in theoretical contemporary literary criticism since the publication of the first edition in 1988. Building on the strengths of the first edition, this volume is designed to introduce the reader to the guiding concepts of present literary and cultural debate by presenting substantial extracts from the most seminal thinkers. As with the original edition there is a selection of the most important and representative work from the major schools in contemporary criticism. Concise introductions with updated suggestions for further reading give a context for each essay and the editors have provided footnotes that help explain the most difficult references. Both students and general readers are encouraged to identify for themselves links between essays, as the selection is ordered both historically and thematically.

"In his graceful integration of insights and literature from the disparate fields of art history, history, and ethnic studies, and with his focus on a little known body of visual images and image-makers, Lee has written a book that promises to make a significant contribution in terms of both subject and methodology. The residents of his Chinatown are not merely subjects of an orientalizing gaze, they are themselves producers of images, shapers of the neighborhood's distinctive physical appearance, followers of both American and Chinese political and cultural developments. . . . [This] book asserts the possibilities of images as sources of cultural meaning and reinserts art history into a central position in American cultural studies."--Martha A. Sandweiss, Professor of American Studies and History, Amherst College

"The author invites the reader to understand the paintings and photographs he is examining. . . as sites of human enactment where Chinese and non-Chinese alike participate in acts ofcultural encounter." --Rodger C. Birt, Professor of Humanities and American Studies, San Francisco State University

"Roger Benjamin's "Orientalist Aesthetics dramatically enhances our understanding of French colonial visual culture during the period of colonialism's greatest ambitions. It is a richly nuanced book, about the densely imbalanced connections between France and North Africa, full of fascinating images and elegant analysis, exemplary in its wide-ranging attention to art works, popular spectacle, institutions, scholarship, and the contradictory workings of colonial culture and power. This book should be read not only by art historians and North Africa specialists, but by anyone concerned with colonial cultures and their legacies."--Nicholas Thomas, author of "Possessions: Indigenous Art/Colonial Culture

""Orientalist Aesthetics represents an impressive feat of research and a tale heretofore untold. Especially fascinating is Roger Benjamin's choice not simply to interrogate the institutional history of French Orientalist painting, but to consider more broadly the French management of indigenous artsas well as,some of the Algerian artists who fashioned careers during this period. This is an original and responsible reconstruction of a significant and complex history."--Darcy Grimaldo Grigsby, author of "Extremities: Painting Empire in Post-Revolutionary France

"At once broad and minutious, "Orientalist Aesthetics treats the major institutions and actors who brought about the encyclopedic Orientalist movement. Roger Benjamin's work has the potential to significantly advance the dialogue between Europe and the United States on current problems in post-colonial studies."--Francois Pouillon, author of "Les deux vies d'Etienne Dinet, peintre en Islam: L'Algerie et l'heritage colonial

"RogerBenjamin's engrossing and painstakingly researched book breaks new ground in the study of Orientalism. The fifty years of the book's novel compass have been virtually untouched by previous studies. Benjamin's subtle understa