| Summary/Abstract |
Edward Said's concept of orientalism was developed from his perception of the role of scholarship in the West's exploitation of the East for the purpose of conquest and the maintenance of political power. It was not simply a construct of Eastern inferiority versus Western superiority. Hassan Hanafi, chair of philosophy at Cairo University, first encouraged a “science of occidentalism” to counter orientalist studies.1 However, as Syrian philosopher Sadiq al-Azm has suggested, one must heed Said's warning to the subjects and victims of orientalism against the dangers of applying the readily available structures, styles and ontological biases of orientalism upon themselves and others.2 That would result in orientalism in reverse, or the internalizing of orientalist political intentions.
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