On Thu, 10 Mar 1994, Robbin Murphy wrote: > I've always been told that Oriental refers to "east of Jerusalem" > and is not very descriptive. There was a book a year or so by > Edward Said called "Orientalisms" that goes into the history of > the term. [remainder of message deleted] Edward W. Said, =Orientalism= (New York: Pantheon Books, 1978), "...it is true that the term =Orientalism= is less preferred by specialists today, both because it is too vague and general and because it connotes the high-handed executive attitude of nineteenth-century and early-twentieth- century European colonialism." (p. 2) It has been a long time since I read Said, but my recollection is of a polemic against =Orientalism= from an intellectual with cultural roots in the Near East, where by =Orientalism= we should understand a kind of myth or delusion by Europeans (and North Americans) about the region that has been called the =Orient=. I think that Said argued that there is a strong racist connotation to =Orientalism=. I think there is more to this than "PCism" (if I may use that term). I think that rejecting a label perceived as pejorative, by at least some of the people of that region, is a hopeful sign, perhaps an indication that we in the =Occident= are beginning to attempt to understand a region of the world with a very complex history. That's my $.02 worth (have you noticed that computer keyboards don't have cent symbols when you really need them?) Mike Jacobs * Arizona State Museum, University of Arizona, Tucson AZ 85721 tel: 602-621-6312 * e-mail: [log in to unmask]