This thesis takes up what is perceived by the author to be a lacuna in Edward W. Said's (1978) study, Orientalism. It is argued that so over-determined is Said's focus on the political, aesthetic and intellectual Western 'Orientalising' of the Arab-Islamic Middle East and North Africa that specific attention is insufficiently directed to the case of the principal imperial state in the region, the Ottoman Empire and its successor, the Turkish Republic. The study begins by exploring the work of Said's principle theoretical source, Michel Foucault specifically as it pertains to the history of the formation of subjectivities in those territories now understood to include 'Europe' and 'the West' and the particular implications for the formulation of representations of those regions understood to constitute the, principally Islamic, Orient. The study then reengages with Said's critique of Oriental ism, and associated literature, in close parallel with Foucault's history of the epistemic formulation of 'Western' subjectivities. A further narrowing of focus then occurs with a discursive history of Western representations of the Ottoman Empire and Turkish Republic within the framework provided by the earlier analyses of Foucault and Said's writing. It is argued that a unidirectional Western discursive formation vis-a-vis the Ottoman and Turkish milieus has not been in evidence. Finally, a Foucauldian discourse analysis of contemporary UK newspaper and commercial tourism texts that take Turkey as their ostensible object is conducted, suggesting the existence of a contemporary discursive formation that renders Turkey and the Ottoman past as an abstract device for the valorization of 'Western' and 'European' subjectivities. It is further argued that a disavowal of the constitutive presence of an Ottoman Turkish 'Europeanness' is necessary to maintain the ontological stability of that Western subj ectivity.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:518237 |
| Date | January 2009 |
| Creators | Bryce, Derek |
| Publisher | Glasgow Caledonian University |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
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