METHS300 Orientalism

This semester's topic is "Orientalism," a term that refers to the long and complicated history of Western perceptions of Asia and Asian civilizations. This course is essentially a study of modern Western stereotypes and misrepresentations, fabricated by artists, writers, and anthropologists in search of exoticism and adventure in the East. We will be looking chiefly at British and French accounts of India, China, and the Near East. During the course of the semester, we will be consulting a variety of source materials, including colonial records, travel writing, and scholarly tomes, as well as artistic media such as literature, painting, and film. In effect, our seminar will endeavor to arrive at a better sense of the necessary and constitutive position accorded to the image of an unchanging Orient in the formation of modern Western selfhood.

Methods Seminars are in-depth, interdisciplinary investigations of a particular problem or theme. These seminars focus on ways of knowing the world characteristic of the disciplines represented in the seminar, such that the forms or methods of investigation are as important as the subject matter itself.