[Buddha-l] "Western Self, Asian Other"

[JKirkpatrick]

Regarding the application of Said's hermeneutic of orientalism in
matters of Asian culture and scholarship about Asia, I recommend
that we read the following corrective review of his book that was
published in 1978:
Kopf, David.  "Hermeneutics versus History". Journal of Asian
Studies, 39: 495-506; 1978. 

Not many people read this journal, but this review sure does a
good job of demolishing the once PC position that scholars of
Indian history/culture were "orientalists." The folks who usually
indulge in the rhetoric of orientalism, as applied to matters
Asian, are in such fields as "neo-colonialism and feminist
studies," mostly doing literary criticism.  I doubt if many of
them ever heard of the Journal of Asian Studies. And most of them
don't bother with scholarship on Buddhism. 

One book that comes to mind as evidence for Quli's viewpoint, in
which I've read a few of the articles but no longer have the book
or can't find it, is: Lopez, Donald S., Jr. Introduction to
Curators of the Buddha: Buddhism under Colonialism, edited by
Donald S. Lopez Jr., 1-29. Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1995.

She cites this book in her bibliog. Other post-modernistic
writers familiar to me as orientalism critics, some of whose work
she also cites there, are: Tessa Bartholomeusz and Homi K.
Bhabha. (Thankfully, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak didn't make the
cut.)

Joanna K.

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...I am not so sure about Orientalism. Since the work of Said,
the terms 'Orientalist' and 'Orientalism' have become negative
ones in the Islamic world and to a lesser extent among some
Hindus. This is clearly much less true among Asian Buddhists,
especially in East Asia. In general, much of what Said says is
simply wrong, if applied to many nineteenth century scholars of
Ancient India or China.

Lance Cousins