Anglo-American Orientalism’s Contribution to the Rise of Regional Studies

Abstract

This study does not aim to research Orientalism, even from a critical stance, given that the subject has been exhausted over the past century, beginning with the critical perspective, whether by orientalists who thought that the name and uses of the field called for criticism or by Arab thinkers, irrespective of their methodological and ideological backgrounds. There have also been polemics against Orientalism that fill the pages of academic works. Here, however, the aim is to shed light on an important transformation undergone in the field after World War II; unfortunately, this change was only alluded to in passing even by the major scholars who made significant contributions to the critique of Orientalism. This paper claims to deal with a new problem, and investigates it in a fashion that makes connections unmade by esteemed, foundational, and voluminous studies.