Decadent Orientalisms: the decay of colonial modernity

Decadent Orientalisms presents a sustained critique of the ways Orientalism and decadence have formed a joint discursive mode of the imperial imagination. Attentive to historical and literary configurations of language, race, religion, and power, Fieni shows the importance of understanding Western d...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Fieni, David (Author)
Format: Electronic eBook
Language:English
Published: New York Fordham University Press 2020
Edition:First edition
Subjects:
Online Access:DE-12
DE-1043
DE-1046
DE-858
DE-859
DE-860
DE-473
DE-739
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Summary:Decadent Orientalisms presents a sustained critique of the ways Orientalism and decadence have formed a joint discursive mode of the imperial imagination. Attentive to historical and literary configurations of language, race, religion, and power, Fieni shows the importance of understanding Western discourses of Eastern decline and obsolescence together with Arab and Islamic responses in which the language of decadence returns as a characteristic of the West.Taking seriously Edward Said’s claim that Orientalism is a "style of having power," Fieni works historically through the aesthetic and ideological effects of Orientalist style, showing how it is at once comparative, descriptive, and performative. Orientalism, the book argues, relies upon decadence as the figure through which its positivist scientific claims become redistributed as speech acts—"truths" that establish dominance. Rather than attending to Orientalism as a repertoire of clichés and stereotypes, Decadent Orientalisms considers the systemic epistemological consequences of the diffuse, yet coherent network of institutions that have constituted Orientalism’s power
Physical Description:1 Online-Ressource (vii, 220 Seiten)
ISBN:9780823286423
DOI:10.1515/9780823286423

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