The Emergence of Discourses and Cultural Hegemony

Edward W. Said (1935-2003) brought out a major disruption in the way the orient understands itself through the discourse of orientalism. He developed a contrapuntal perspective – a method of thinking which interprets experiences that are discrepant and this style of reading and understanding helped him attain a new outlook that refuses to accept the prevalent readings of texts, cultures and identities. Through his powerful writings he attained a stature wherein his name became synonymous with postcolonial theory. This book focuses on Edward W. Said’s seminal text Orientalism wherein he foregrounds how the emergence of the discourse of orientalism perpetrated cultural hegemony of the West onto the colonized world. The present study focuses on the analysis of the complex relationship between the emergence of discourses and perpetration of hegemony both from outside: colonizer to colonized as well as internal hegemony within the non-western world that was making things difficult for the natives.