The Importance of Reading Said: Orientalism, Women, and Postcolonial Literature After 9/11

Abstract

Edward Said’s work, particularly Orientalism (1978), has fallen out of fashion after a number of criticisms aimed at its representation of history, its perceived reliance on (and potential entrenchment of) stark binaries, and its lack of attention to resistant cultural productions, as well as a more general reassessment of the utility and value of postcolonial studies. Yet never has his work seemed more urgent or suited to the cultural moment. Political and cultural discourse after 9/11 spawned a renewal of Orientalist depictions of Muslim societies and, in particular, women. This dissertation argues that postcolonial novelists have engaged with these narratives in a variety of ways: feeding into established narratives and fears and lending them additional credence as “cultural informants”; exploding false binaries and spotlighting the link between colonialism and globalization; and complicating the pervasive representation of 9/11 as a contained narrative. It finds examples of these approaches in Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns (2007), Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss (2006), and Kamila Shamsie’s Burnt Shadows (2009) and suggests that each novel engages differently with the post-9/11 figure of the Muslim Other and/or the language of Orientalism that continues to circulate. This dissertation contends that the global, political, and cultural events of the last fifteen years call for a regeneration of postcolonial studies and a reinvestment in Said’s work. Orientalism did not end with the dissolution of the age of Empire, and it is incumbent upon postcolonial scholars to draw attention to and dismantle it in its many contemporary forms. This dissertation aims to participate in this undertaking.