Orientalism refers to the imitation or depiction of aspects of Eastern cultures in the West by writers, designers and artists, and can also refer to a sympathetic stance towards the region by a writer or other person. An "Orientalist" may be a person engaged in these activities, but is also the traditional term for any scholar of Oriental studies.[1]
These meanings were given a new twist by Edward Said in his controversial 1978 book Orientalism, where he uses the term to describe a tradition, both academic and artistic, of hostile and deprecatory views of the East by the West, shaped by the attitudes of the era of European imperialism in the 18th and 19th centuries. When used in this sense, it often implies essentializing and prejudiced outsider interpretations of Eastern cultures and peoples. Said was critical of this scholarly tradition and also of a few modern scholars, including Princeton University professor Bernard Lewis. In contrast, the term has also been used by some modern scholars to refer to writers of the Imperialist era who had pro-Eastern attitudes, as opposed to those who saw nothing of value in non-Western cultures
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