Zugl.: Berlin, Humboldt-Univ., Diss., 2003 u.d.T.: Polaschegg, Andrea: Deutscher Orientalismus im frühen 19. Jahrhundert

Zugl.: Berlin, Humboldt-Univ., Diss., 2004

Reflection of travellers' activities at the end of the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth century in Enrique Stanko Vráz's work The aim of the offered thesis is to study the issues of exotic lands' presentations given by Czech travellers. Attention is primarily paid to Enrique Stanko Vráz, his work and means of propagation of foreign countries. At the end of nineteenth century and the first half of twentieth century lectures, expositions and books of travels comprised an important part of informing the public about foreign lands. Countries outside of Europe attracted not only the people, who were coming to visit and experience them. But even people, who could not or did not want to leave their homes were longing for discovering those lands. The demand of reports from exotic places of our planet was undertaken by few Czech explorers, who decided to share their experience with the Czech public. The centre of the work will be the ways of the implementation and access of the travellers to the unique information. The main subject of the study will be the archive materials from the Náprstek museum archives and secondary literature from the field of travelling and orientalism.

Thesis "Orientalism or Ornamentalism?" is dealing with two rather different explanations of the nature of British imperialism. The work compares Edward Said's concept of Orientalism with Cannadine's Ornamentalism. Both concepts are not seen as contestant theories that have to be necessarily in a clash with each other. An opinion is presented that both theories aspire to explain and describe an identical subject - British Empire. Only they do so from different standpoints. As a way out of understanding them as a contradictory approaches is suggested "cubist thinking" of Empire.

In this article, I undertake several lines of enquiry in the history of ideological and political movements centered on the “modernity” polemic at the transnational level. By analyzing these movements in juxtaposition, I explore the possibility of more diverse narratives of modernity and antimodernity than are assumed by conventional dichotomies in contemporary academic writings. The results of my enquiry challenge several pervasive “dogmas” of post-colonial theory: that orientalism is a purely modernist intellectual project, while anti-orientalism is by necessity its more “local” discursive counterpart in a dualism of East and West.

Thesis Negotiation of "the West" in everyday Life of a Lebanese Family is focusing on the ways of designing the image of "the West" at a chosen Lebanese family, especially those members who do not have any direct "West" experience and their images of it are based on the information obtained from those who live there or from media. Research was conducted in Qalamoun city in northern Lebanon by the method of participant observation and unstructured interview. One of the central moments of the research was reflexivity. The research is based on theories of transnationalism and the concept of social networks. One of the primary identification and classfication of man is in Qalamoun his religion. A person, who believes in nothing is a threat in the sense that he is unpredictible (he has no clear governing rules). Keywords: Lebanon, orientalism, reflexivity, "western" culture

Using a qualitative content analysis, the thesis "Framing of Islam in the Czech News" examines the framing of Islam and Muslims in the Czech daily newspapers Mladá fronta DNES and Právo before and after the terrorist attacks in Paris (7-8 January 2015). Its theoretical framework views Islam both from the perspective of Czech society and the Czech media, the study of the latter aspect drawing on Czech as well as foreign theoretical works and research focused on Islam in the media. The thesis also considers the concept of media framing. The qualitative analysis aims to identify a set of frames specific to the media construction of Islam and Muslims. The extent to which framing is influenced by location (Islam and Muslims in the Czech Republic and abroad) and the Paris events (the development of framing over time - before and after the attacks) is also explored. Finally, the research looks at the role played in writings on the subject by stereotypes, orientalism, new racism (namely islamophobia) and van Dijk's ideological square.

The aim of this MA thesis is to describe and evaluate the manner in which Richard Flanagan captured Japanese culture in his 2013 novel, The Narrow Road to the Deep North. Since the main motif of the work is the life of an Australian prisoner of war, a topic that has been significant in the creation of Australian national identity, the novel is firstly analysed from its position in the wider context of Australian literature. Richard Flanagan provided the readers with a complex work, which presents the given motif not only from the perspective of the Australian prisoners-of-war, but also from the perspective of their predominantly Japanese captors. The inclusion of the points of view of the Japanese ranks the novel among the contemporary adaptations that provide a more comprehensive view on the events of World War II. For that reason, the novel is assessed as to the complexity and accuracy of the selected and incorporated areas of Japanese culture, whether there is a tendency for schematization in the depiction, and therefore a display of the so-called "Orientalism", as described by Edward Said. This MA thesis aims to analyse whether, and to what degree Flanagan's novel differs from other works of the Australian literature that deal with the events of World War II and Japan. The analysis focuses on...

Orientalism in Bush administration and its influence over military intervention in Iraq Abstract Master's thesis focuses on the presence of orientalist elements in the Bush administration and their influence over the justification and execution of the military intervention in Iraq. These elements are orientalist construction of identities, civilizational mission, concept of oriental Muslim and concept of oriental woman. For this purpose, three research questions were formulated. 1) How the identity of Iraq was constructed to justify the intervention? 2) How the identity of USA was constructed to justify the intervention 3) Whether the Bush administration carried elements of orientalism, how did they present themselves and what amount of influence did they have over justification and execution of the military intervention in Iraq? The Fairclough three-dimensional model of critical discursive analysis was chosen in order to answer research questions. Analysis was focused on official speeches of three key representatives of Bush administration (G.W. Bush, D. Cheney, C. Powell) within the time period from the terrorist attacks on September 11th 2001 until the actual military intervention to Iraq on March 20th 2003. Based on the analysis the presence of orientalist construction of identities and civilizational...

The thesis focuses on different conceptions of Russia developed throughout the philosophical- journalistic and prose works of an eminent Russian thinker of the 19th century - Alexander Herzen, who had lived and worked in Russia and later on continued his work as emigrant elsewhere in Europe. Applying E. Said's Orientalism, I. Buruma's and A. Margalit's Occidentalism, and A. Etkind's internal colonization, a representative sample of Hezen's work has been analyzed to embrace the changes of the author's perception of Russia. In particular, Etkind's concept is used to bridge the divergence between a conventional understanding of Orientalism directed upon Middle East and the canonical texts of the Russian 19th century (pre-revolutionary) intelligentsia. Herzen's work has been thus situated within the context of postcolonial studies. The analysis studies the images and scenes used by Herzen to build up his ideas and understandings of Russia and Europe, or more precisely his constructions of East and West, indirectly intertwined with the social characteristics of Russia and his various conceptions, including the imaginary role of Russian intelligentsia and the author's own role in Russia and Europe.