Wilhelm Halbfass, philosopher and Indologist, is a committed participant in the dialogue between India and Europe, whose reflections on the Indian tradition and its Western perception are accompanied by reflection on and critical examination of the Western tradition. In this innovative combination of Indological research and philosophical-hermeneutical research in the history of ideas, he demonstrates a purpose more ambitious and a scope wider than Edward Said's who constructed the Western study of the so-called Orient as an attempt to deprive it of its identity and sovereignty, and who perceived the pursuit of Oriental Studies in Western universities to be an extension of a fundamentally political will to power and domination. Without denying the domination of the dialogue between India and Europe by the West, Halbfass goes beyond that to show a different way of approaching Indian thought; he strives to establish the presuppositions and prerequisites that would make a true dialogue and mutual understanding between Indian and Western intellectual cultures possible. The papers in the present volume originate from twenty-three scholars of Indology, philosophy, religious studies, comparative theology, classics, folkloristics and political theory, working in eleven countries spread over three continents. They address central issues of Halbfass' work; his critical responses to them commence with an extensive essay in which he assesses in a masterly manner the state of Indian studies almost twenty years after the publication of Said's Orientalismz.

Explores some steps toward non-assimilative encounters in the "global village."

The first in-depth study of the collaborative intellectual exchange between the European and the Arabic Republics of Letters. Beyond Orientalism reformulates our understanding of the early modern Mediterranean through the remarkable life and career of Moroccan polymath Ahmad Ibn Qâsim al-Hajarî (ca. 1570-1641). By showing Hajarî’s active engagement with some of the most prominent European Orientalists of his time, Oumelbanine Zhiri makes the case for the existence of an Arabic Republic of Letters that operated in parallel to its European counterpart. A major corrective to the long-held view of Orientalism that accords agency only to Europeans, Beyond Orientalism emphasizes the active role played by Hajarî and other “Orientals” inside and outside of Europe in some of the most significant intellectual movements of the age. Zhiri explores the multiple interactions between these two networks of intellectuals, decentering Europe to reveal how Hajarî worked collaboratively to circulate knowledge among Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East.

Islamic religion has become an object of political discourse in ways that also affects academic reflection; against this background this volume aims to provide a theoretically and empirically founded assessment of where social sciences currently stand with regard to Islam. For this purpose, the volume continues to develop the sociological knowledge of Islam that began in the 1980s. Given the Orientalism inherent in sociology, the volume focuses on Muslim knowledge systems and institutions, as well as the practice of Muslim religiosity in various social contexts stretching from Algeria and Morocco to Turkey.

Global interest in the Islamic world has reached a high point in recent years. At the same time, the influence of Islamic art on the world has declined. This was not always the case. In the past, both Europe and America were inspired by what was then called the 'Orient' and its artistic output. Western painters travelled extensively in the Middle East and India, recording their views of a region that was irresistible to Victorians with a sense of romance. The exhibition 'Beyond Orientalism: How the West was Won over by Islamic art' looks further than Orientalist art. Instead of being about how European and American artists depicted the Islamic world, it shows how the Islamic world changed aesthetics in the West. The aim of the exhibition is to put artefacts from the collection of the Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia alongside the works they inspired. Beyond Orientalism explores a world in which creative inspiration flowed in all directions and the eyes of the West were open to the beauty of Islamic culture. -- Publisher description.

Orientalism is widely known as the study of Eastern cultures by Western intellectuals. Yet most people would associate this term with scholars from France, England, Germany, and the United States. This book presents, along with new essays dealing with the United States, the Islamic world and the Far East, alternative views on Orientalism, this time also coming from Latin America and other regions. While still dealing, in some cases, with interpretations of the East by Western outsiders, the fact that the cultural production analyzed (as well as many of the critics) comes from an area, Latin America, that has also been affected by European and U.S. imperialism and colonialism brings new light to the traditionally negative connotations ascribed to the term. These essays reveal that, though prejudice and racism are still prevalent in many Orientalist aesthetic practices coming from Latin America and other world regions, the perspective can also be radically different. From this perspective, rather than constructing the Orient as the Westâ (TM)s alien and inferior other, the mirror image that appears in this book constitutes an attempt at understanding the Asian within us (within the Western world). The postcolonial approach of many of these essays is the theoretical framework that prevents (or, at least, tries to prevent) paternalistic or hegemonic representations of the Asian subject. As a result, the emphasis is often placed on transculturation, hybridity, liminality, double consciousness, and cultural identity.

This book explores the ways in which colonial administrators constructed knowledge about the society and culture of India and the processes through which that knowledge has shaped past and present Indian reality.

This Reader explores the extent of Oriental influence on European thought, primarily in the period of the Enlightenment and the nineteenth-century period of doubt and scepticism that followed it. It is the first Reader to bring together in one place a series of specific historical and textual studies of Oriental influence upon European thinkers.