Nesting Orientalisms Thirty Years Later

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

Brief Description

In 1978 Edward Said transformed Orientalism from a seemingly innocent term for a fascination with the cultures of the East into a critical category to evaluate systematic essentializing of the cultures of the Middle East. His intervention provoked a number of critical responses, but also inspired application of this concept to other “Orients,” notably South Asia, and even lands and peoples within those parts of Europe that had been under “Oriental” Ottoman rule—The Balkans. Thus during the disintegration of Yugoslavia in the 1990s the concept of Orientalism was used by Milica Bakić-Hayden in Slavic Review (1995) to explain the logic of disparaging discourses that developed regarding and also among the nations of the “European” and “Oriental” parts of the country. This form of analysis is known as Nesting Orientalisms and referred at that time to hierarchical valorizations of Yugoslav peoples’ cultures in regard to “belonging to Europe” – or, supposedly, not. Thirty years after the publication of this highly cited article we are revisiting the legacy of this concept, which has influenced generations of young scholars in America and Europe. We will reflect on the crucial question of how such rhetoric continues to influence political reality, focusing on the relevance that Orientalist discourse may still have in representations of today’s Europe and of the world in general.

Sub Unit

• Anthropology, Cultural Studies

Chair

• Nada Petkovic, U of Chicago

Roundtable Speakers

• Milica Bakic-Hayden, U of Pittsburgh

• Dusan Ilija Bjelic, U of Southern Maine

• Marija Grujic, Inst for Literature and Art (Serbia)

• Angelina Ilieva, U of Chicago

• Tomislav Zoran Longinovic, U of Wisconsin-Madison