On 'Orientalism': Edward Said

Here is my response to Identify 5 concept related Orientalism from the interview of Edwards Said.

5 concepts:-

1]What is Orientalism:

                                 As per the Said's words. Orientalism is not an imagination it is a material thing and genuine theory. Orientalism has revolutionized the study of MiddleEast and also useful to studies post-colonialism and other disciplines like History, Anthropology, Political science, and Cultural studies.

2] The idea of Difference:

The differences between different kinds of Orientalism are in effect the differences between different experiences of what is called the Orient. I mean the difference between Britain and France on the one hand and the United States on the other, is that Britain and France had colonies in the Orient. I mean they had a longstanding relationship and imperial role in a place like India so that there's a kind of an archive of actual experiences of being in India, of ruling in a country for several hundred years. And the same with the French in North Africa, let's say Algeria or Indochina, direct colonial experience. In the case of the Americans, the experience is much less direct. There's never been an American occupation of the Near East. So I would say the difference between British and French Orientalism on the one hand and the American experience of the Orient on the other is that the American one is much more indirect, much more based on abstractions. The second big thing, I think that differs in the American experience from the British and French of Orientalism, is that the American. Orientalism is very politicized by the presence of Israel for which America is the main.

3]Palestine Issue: 

Said talked about the issue of Palestine that what is the condition of the people there, they have not their motherland because of the forceful occupation by Israel. From 1948 to the present time Palestinian are suffering a lot for the peace and their homeland but Western countries do not take any kind of action on this issue. We also can say that why Europe and America built a new state for Jew people surrounding Islamic countries if they have a love for Jew people then why they vanished jew from Europe. So, Said explained this issue through cultural, religious and political views.

4]Idea of history

Every nation has its own history, the way we interpreted the history is quite different. History is not only about to understand our one's self but to understand our self in terms or in relation with the nation. Eg- Palestinian's local complexities, the mixed background of Arab Muslims, Arab and Jews, Arab Christian, Israeli Jews.

5]The authoritarian, hierarchical Model

I say, not all of us say, well they should be thrown out. Because we have been thrown out and so we have another vision, which is a vision of co-existence, in which Jew and Arab, Muslim, Christian, and Jew can live together in some polity, which I think it requires a kind of creativity, and invention that is possible – vision that would replace the authoritarian, hierarchical model. But this idea that somehow we should protect ourselves against the infiltrations, the infections of the Other, is, I think, the most dangerous idea at the end of the twentieth century. Unless we find ways to do it, and there are no shortcuts to it, unless we find ways to do this, you know there is going to be wholesale violence of a sort represented by the Gulf War, by the killings in Bosnia, the Rwandan massacres and so on. I mean those are the pattern of emerging conflict that is extremely dangerous and needs to be counteracted and I think therefore it's correct to say that the challenge now is – I wouldn't call it anything other than coexistence. How does one co-exist with people whose religions are different, whose

traditions and languages are different but who form part of the same community or polity in the national sense? How do we accept difference without violence and hostility?

THANK YOU

Interview of Shashi Tharoor

#In the interview of Shashi Tharoor I like these 3 ideas.

#GDP:
"The British came to one of the richest  countries in the world, accounting for 27% of global GDP in the 1700s and 23% in 1800s."
"Over 200 years of exploitation, depredation, loot, and destruction reduced it to a poster child for third-world poverty and just 3% of global GDP."

#Development of Railways:
 Nowadays Railways become most important part of India and all credit goes to Britishers but they never think about the benefits for Indian; they developed railways for their own selfish motives. britishers used to supply raw material to their own countries and therefore they constructed railways in only a few parts of India where they can get raw material easily.

#Exploitation : 
British always exploited Indian in every way. They taking goods from India. They took everything from India rather than spending money into the development of India. They always see their benefits first.  Mughals only spend Indian money into the development of India rather than taking it outside of India. Britisher had increased Export text and decrease import texts. So this way they taking raw materials from India and Indians have to pay high text and after that this raw material convert into things and import that material in India by paid lower text. So this way increased the text they exploit Indian. 

Guest lecture on Poe's short stories by Jay Mehta sir.

#GUEST LECTURE BY DR. JAY MEHTA.

We have often guest lectures in our English Department MKBU. Head of Department Dr. Dilip Barad invites various Professors from other universities. In the Same manner, From 18th to 22september, we had the lecture by Dr. Jay Mehta who has great skill to teach Edger Allen Poe’s short stories. Dr. Jay Mehta is one of former student and gem of our English Department MKBU. He is Lecturer at R.C.Technical College Ahmedabad. In the very beginning of this 4day session, he told us that- I will not let you feel bored in the class; and to prove this he used various techniques of teaching he taught us Poe's short stories with poems and Ghazals. He has good knowledge about Poe and his stories because he has completed his Ph.D. in this subject. Before the session, he gave us a very interesting task based on our real life and related to Poe's characteristic of Poe's story like you ever got angry or feel murderer? Do you believe in Ghost or not so on. To read pre-thinking task click here.

#He taught us 6 stories of Poe.

#Characteristics of his stories.

• Insanity versus rationality
• Obsession
• Man's relationship with death
• Love and hate
• Curiosity
• The double self

1) The Tell-Tale Heart

 #Theme

• ØVersions of Reality
• ØCunning and Cleverness
• ØThe Home
• ØMortality
• ØTime 

2) The Black Cat

3) The Fall of the House of Usher

#Theme

•  ØMorality
•   ØMadness
•   ØFear
•   ØIncest
•   ØFriendship
•   ØBurial
•   ØThe Art

4) The Cask of Amontillado

#Theme

• ØFreedom and Confinement
• ØBetrayal
• ØDrugs and Alcohol
• ØMortality
• ØFoolishness and Folly 

5) The Purloined Letter

#Theme

• ØCunning and Cleverness
• ØLies and Deceit
• ØVersions of Reality
• ØPower
• ØRules and Order 

6) The Gold Bug

Jay sir has started teaching us horror stories of Poe.  he said that -“Poe has believed that not a single word should be wasted.” Sir has made us realize by reading original stories that every word has something to convey and every word is connected. In horror stories of Poe, he shows us the human beings who have over acuteness of senses, who are cold-blooded murderers. They don’t have guilt on their acts. They called their act of murder a task, an assignment, a project, which are used in the positive sense but they are using it differently or they are trying to make us think positively on their act. Most of the stories have the first-person narrator but some also have the third-person narrator. With the use of psychology and Freud, sir make it easy to understand. “The Tell-Tale Heart”, “The Black Cat”, “The Fall of the House of Usher”, and “The Cask of Amontillado” these are the horror story and “The Purloined Letter” and “The Gold Bug” are the detective and treasure hunt stories.

My learning experience: Without any doubt, I can say that Jay sir is a great teacher. The teaching style was very interesting because we couldn't feel boredom because sir had various examples to teach this story. I liked the teaching method of Jay sir because he was explaining the story with psychoanalytical perspective and reality-based examples.He increased our vocabulary of Gothic. The surprising thing was that a soft-hearted person is teaching us stories of horror, terror, murder etc. 

“A poem a day keeps psychiatrist away”- these are the words of Jay sir and at last day he ended with poetry session. 

Post-colonial studies: Movie screening- 1] Midnight's children and 2] The Reluctant Fundamentalist

On 9 September 2018, we had a movie screening of "Midnight's children" and "The Reluctant Fundamentalist" at the Department of English, MKBU. So, this blog is a review of two movies from the post-colonial perspective, as a part of academic activity.

Here is the blog link of given task: Click here


#Post-Colonial studies
#Movie-screening

#Midnight's children
#1947- Independence of India

Midnight's Children is the movie directed by Deepa Mehta, which is an adaptation of Salman Rushdie's 1981 novel. Fact is that it's also not considered as a good adaptation because it is merely impossible to convert the words Rushdie into the picture. Movie and book both deals with India's transition from colonialism to Independence as well as it deals with some high remarkable topics like the Partition of India and Pakistan, Magic realism, emergency etc.

This book got Booker Prize and James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 1981, it was also awarded the Booker of Bookers prize and also considered as the best all-time prize winner. Here we can often find some Chutnification of language as well as chutney appears many times in a symbolic way, as a symbol of mixing of so many things. 


Mr. Rushdie takes time of two years to pare down 600-pgs. book into a 130-pg script. His use of language makes him differ from other Indian English writers; his use of numerous Urdu and Hindi words without translation reflects his overconfidence. He represented the allegorical image of India. History and nation both narrated in a fictional way. Whatever happened in the novel has actually happened in India, but the use of metanarrative technique itself created doubt in the narration.

#Postcolonial views:

• Hybridity     

               #E.G.- Rushdie himself Saleem is a perfect representation of hybrid male born with multiple allegiances and identities.

• Emergency 1975

        #Real nature of Indira Gandhi and her policy towards poor and rich as well as her decision of putting emergency for her personal benefits.

• Vasectomy

        #Congress policy for poor people, they believe that poor can't have family and thus they did vasectomy of poor. 

• postcolonial feminism

        #E.G.-In the beginning of the movie Doctor did not allow to examine Naseem's illness to see her body, there a curtain between doctor and Naseem.

• Magic Realism

        #E.G.-  Magic realism is really presented well here in this movie. Here,  Parvati saves first Saleem's life and then her child's life by magic. In this movie, all characters are portrayed well specially Saleem,  Shiva, and Parvati. 

         




#The Reluctant Fundamentalist
#9/11- Ground Zero




During the discussion of the postcolonial study, we have watched the film 'The Reluctant Fundamentalist' which was directed by Meera Nair. The film narrates the life of one Pakistani who is capable to work among American people but just being a Pakistani he suffered a lot and consider as a citizen of the second world. His self-respect has vanished with his clothes. He becomes a victim of the situation and it's made a great impact on him. An educated person is considered as a terrorist who is actually a teacher but he needs more security for him because other want to kill him and this security made his frame as a terrorist. This movie is directed by Mira Nair and it is based on the novel with the same title written by Mohsin Hamid. The main theme of the movie is how Muslim's were disrespected after the attack of 9/11. Here the protagonist Changez Khan goes to America to earn money. He makes friends fall in love with the American lady. But after the attack of 9/11,  his colleagues started misbehaving with him. We can see a postcolonial aspect here when the Muslims are disrespected by the Americans. 




Thank you