Orientalists, Islamists and the Global Public Sphere - A Genealogy of the Modern Essentialist Image of Islam - Dietrich Jung
Orientalism: Edward Said and His Critics
Orientalists, Islamists and the Global Public Sphere - A Genealogy of the Modern Essentialist Image of Islam - Dietrich Jung
Dietrich Jung [+]
University of Southern Denmark
Dietrich Jung is a Professor and Head of Department at the Center for Contemporary Middle East Studies, University of Southern Denmark. He holds a MA in Political Science and Islamic Studies, as well as a Ph.D. in Political Science from University of Hamburg, Germany and has large field experience in the Muslim world. He has published numerous scholarly articles on causes of war, peace and conflict studies, political Islam, modern Turkey and on conflicts in the Middle East. His most recent book (edited with Catharina Raudvere) is Religion, Politics, and Turkey’s EU Accession (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008).
Description
It is the purpose of this chapter, firstly, to present some of these complexities and nuances of Said’s argument that have been submerged in the general debate. In a second step I put his complex and sometimes inconsistent argumentation into the context of the major points of critique which Orientalism has had to face. Finally, I link these major themes of the “Said controversy” to the central questions of my own study. In this way, the conclusion explains the ways in which my re-reading of Edward Said’s work has influenced the research design of my own project and maps out the chapters to come.