Orientalism Definition

Orientalism refers to a certain intellectual approach to the subject of the Orient, understood as the study of everything Egyptian, Persian, Indian, and so on. The term is mainly used in the context of Edward Said's 1978 critique, which argues that Westerners often view the East through a series of fixed and distorted images and that East-means-Opposition to West and that the West constantly constructs and exaggerates a specific specific 'Oriental' image to maintain its own power and superiority.