Lecture

Yesterday we attended a lecture by a professor here, Edhem Eldem.  (I'm not positive, but I'm pretty sure he's French.)  The lecture was titled "'Consuming the Orient': The use of popular Orientalist themes in Europe and in Turkey, 1880-2000."  He showed us a lot of travel posters and comic books, arguing that there was a certain innocence to popular forms of orientalism (without necessarily excusing them), as they were part of an already established system.  He discussed the complicated relationships that Western artists had with the East (for instance one French man who, though he drew incredibly stereotypical pictures, eventually moved to North Africa and converted to Islam) and the ways in which Eastern artists responded to and often encouraged the West's portrayal of their lives.  I think his main point was that while Said's portrayal of the oppressive West was certainly part of the picture, the 19th and 20th centuries were much more complex.  Not all of the West's actions were harmful, and not all of the East's were innocent and inoffensive.  Most interesting to me was his statement that if Turkey continues to claim orientalist oppression from the West, it must also recognize its own orientalist portrayals of, for instance, its religious populations and ethnic groups like Arabs and Kurds.  

A couple other interesting points:

-Eldem argued that after many attempts to rid the country of Ottoman heritage, Turkey was rediscovering itself through the West, which was much better at preserving (though stereotypically) many aspects of Ottoman culture.  

-He very much supports Turkey joining the EU, because he thinks it will help Western Europe deal with its Islamophobia.  Strangely enough, many nationalists (generally for traditionally Western concepts like secularism and capitalism) oppose joining the EU.  Eldem's reason for this was that the republic is still rooted in a very 1930's sort of European nationalism, one that places many other goals above democracy.

So in short this lecture has given me a lot to think about.