240526 SE Orientalism, Balkanism, Occidentalism (P4) (2015W)

The discourses of Orientalism and Balkanism originally grounded in travelogues and art, but also social science and politics figure as hegemonic perception patterns of the 'other' up to the present. Moreover, as explored in the seminal work of Edward Said (1995 [1978]) and Maria Todorova (2009), the self-image of the 'West'/the 'Occident' is crucially based on the construction of the 'Orient', respectively the 'Balkans'. The analysis of occidental discourses as for example conducted by anthropologists (Carrier 2003) also comprise a crucial part of the course.
Particularly after the break-out of violent conflicts in the Balkans, the attacks of 9/11, as well as in the course of EU-Enlargement (Turkey, Eastern Enlargement) and the aggravation of the migration policies (xenophobia, debates of 'honour killings', Islamophobia etc.), the pronounced strength of orientalist, balkanist, and occidentalist patterns of thought (and hence the necessity of their critical assessment by social sciences) has become more than apparent.
Through close readings of key-texts from a transdisciplinary perspective the aim of the course is to offer the framework for a systematic reassessment of crucial anthropological notions such as: the construction of the 'other', forms of identity grammars, boundary-making, postcolonialism, essentialisation, exotisation etc.