Blog post: May 9
Edward Said, “My Thesis”; “Arabs, Islam, and the Dogmas of
the West.”
Sunaina Maira. 2007. “Indo-Chic: Late Capitalist Orientalism
and Imperial Culture.” In Alien Encounters:
Popular Culture in Asian America, edited by Mimi T. Nguyen and Thuy L.
Nguyen (pp. 221-243). Durham: Duke
University Press.
In My Thesis,
Edward Said talks about orientalism in a more abstract and general sense as he compares
it to colonialism, and questions the authenticity and originality of
orientalism. I find his thesis harder to relate to then the next reading
because he doesn’t really give his definition of orientalism, and I feel he is
talking about the orient in a different context then the other reading. Both
readings are on the new topic of orientalism, but in Indo-Chic: Late Capitalist Orientalism and Imperial Culture by
Sunaina Maira, the author provides the context of Indian cultural appropriation
in America. She talks about the contradiction of the war on immigrants in the
U.S. and the cultural consumption and appropriation of Indian and Asian clothes,
jewelry, and henna.
The author also mentions global capitalism, and how “the
spiritual east” has been turned into a selling point to white people in the us
for appropriated goods. This article also talks about youth involvement in
appropriation, which I thought was interesting to bring up because most of the Asian
American youth movements previously discussed in this class have been
revolutionary and contrary to mass culture, but in this case white teenagers
are most at fault for this cultural appropriation and consumption.
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