College of Creative Studies

Current Course Offerings
Fall 2008

This course explores the rich web of relations built up over the centuries between the Orient and the West, primarily Europe. The dichotomy East vs. West is set up as a confrontation?Greek democracy vs. Asian despotism?as early as Herodotus's account of the Persian wars, and is still prevalent today, for instance in the discourse about an ideological divide between a democratic, secular West and a repressive, fundamentalist East. In this particular sense, the late Edward Said sees "the Orient" as a creation of the European mind.

The course will focus on a key period encompassing the 17^th, 18^th and 19^th centuries. During that time contacts intensify between East and West?diplomatic and commercial ties, then colonization. The Orient as an object of scientific knowledge, the Orient as an area of imperialist expansion, and the Orient as a locus of the European imaginary, interact so closely as to make them virtually inseparable. We will explore Orientalism through a variety of media. In addition to the rich literature connected with the Orient (from the 1001 Nights and its reception, to the celebrated travelogues, as well as the recent scholarly debates about Orientalism), the course will draw on film, painting, and other forms of cultural expression that show Europe's preoccupation (indeed obsession) with "the Orient" both as a seductive dream and?sometimes?its worst nightmare. Orientalism, Europe's vision of the "Orient", is also a productive way for the West to come to terms with its own political, religious and philosophical demons, or to renew itself artistically.