Browsing by Subject "Orientalism"

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
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    Containing Balkan nationalism: Imperial Russia and Ottoman Christians (1856--1912)
    (2008-08) Vovchenko, Denis Vladimirovich
    The dissertation is an analysis of the Russian relationship to Orthodox Christians in the Ottoman Empire during the second half of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century. As a methodological approach, it uses the concepts of irredentism, Orientalism, and multiple modernities. The dissertation focuses on the debate around the Bulgarian Church Question in Russia and Greek lands. The discussion developed among intellectuals, ecclesiastics, and diplomats from the Crimean War to the First Balkan War (1856-1912) and inspired several visions of a supranational cultural and political union of Russia and its "unredeemed" populations in the Near East. The study argues that in the period under consideration traditional Pan-Orthodox irredentism had to compete with the more modern ethnic-based Pan-Slavism. Based on those examples, the dissertation suggests that irredentism is a discourse of both similarity and difference. It helps consolidate the national identity of the core group by mobilizing it for the cause conveniently situated abroad. In line with Orientalist hallmarks, irredentism others and genders the unredeemed as helpless victims. In contrast to Orientalism, irredentist discourse others the purported Self and leaves more room for the agency of the unredeemed. The three responses to the Bulgarian Church Question can be broadly defined as "Pan-Slavism," "Pan-Orthodoxy," and "Greco-Slavic world/cultural type" theory as a synthesis of the first two. These visions sought to resolve tensions between ethnic and religious elements in the identity of significant segments of the educated Russian society. All three visions were examples of Orientalist production of knowledge connected with political power. They ultimately aimed at creating a non-Western civilization based on shared culture and centered on Russia. The existing scholarly literature considers the proponents of these visions as conservative, neotraditional, and "anti-modern" on the assumption that there can only be one liberal Western model of modernity. The dissertation uses the concept of multiple modernities to situate Russian responses to the Bulgarian Church Question within the broader context of "the invention of tradition" in fin-de-siecle Europe. It suggests the strength and evolution of traditional religious and dynastic identities and institutions on the eve of the First World War.
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    A "Lasting Solution": the Eastern Question and British Imperialism, 1875-1878.
    (2012-07) Schumacher, Leslie Rogne
    From the late eighteenth century until the 1920s, one of the preeminent international issues in Europe was the so-called "Eastern Question," a term that refers to the events and dynamics related to the decline of the Ottoman Empire's political and economic power. European states were concerned about the Eastern Question because the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire held the potential to destabilize existing international relationships, which European leaders feared would lead to economic calamity, political strife, and war. There thus emerged a discussion about the ways Europe might manage Ottoman decline, whether in terms of reversing such decline or gaining from it territorially and politically. The relevance of the Eastern Question to European politics coincided with the rise of what scholars call the "new imperialism," a period of rapid territorial expansion that lasted from the second half of the nineteenth century until the First World War. In Britain the greatest wave of "new imperial" expansion began in the early 1880s, usually dated to Britain's occupation of Egypt in 1882. Yet few studies have explored how discourse about the Eastern Question may have influenced Britain's version of the "new imperialism." This dissertation explores the intersection between British politics, public discourse, and diplomacy during the Eastern Crisis of 1875-1878, a critical moment in modern European history. I argue that Britain's later imperial projects would not have taken the particular shape, or even had the scope, they did without Britain having experienced the Eastern Crisis as a domestic political and cultural event. Long considered a problem confined to traditional diplomatic history, I show how during the Eastern Crisis issues related to the Eastern Question (and "the East" at large) entered into and affected British politics and society, leading Britons to promote imperialism as providing a "lasting solution" to Eastern and, more generally, global disorder. I focus on the 1876 Bulgarian Atrocities, the 1877-1878 Russo-Turkish War, the 1878 Cyprus Convention, and the 1878 Congress of Berlin--all events that were widely discussed in both the public and governmental arenas of Victorian society.
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    Palestine and the Middle East in the Popular Filmic Imaginary: Historical Memory, Grievable Lives, and Encountering the Other in Film
    (2022-07) Bennett, Stephen
    This study explores how American audiences encounter Palestine and the wider Middle East through popular films, and how our collective memories of conflicts in the Arab world are constructed in media. Taking into account how the discourse of film critics often prime audiences to understand films as realistic and historically accurate, this project takes an incisive critical look at how films that are framed as sympathetic and progressive actually deny Palestinians and Arabs agency, and render their lives as disposable and ungrievable. In framing films as a motivated public memory project and analyzing the textual elements and narratives of popular movies, this study also uncovers how the cities and spaces of the Middle East are presented merely as sites of danger and trauma for American and Israeli protagonists. It also delves into the work these films do regarding the malleability of collective national memory and how they rewrite conflicts of the past to help maintain senses of militaristic masculinity and the ideology of exceptionalism. This study also expands on the concept of the Israeli ‘Shoot and Cry’ narratives to demonstrate how that same effect is prominent in American war films and displaces the audiences’ sympathy from the victim to the aggressor. The project closes with an analysis of two films, Amreeka and Forget Baghdad, both of which complicate notions of memory, place, and Palestinian and Arab identity, in stark contrast with what is seen in most mainstream films portraying the peoples and places of the Middle East.
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    Sounding Orientalism: Radical Sounds and Affects of Asian American Women Who Rock
    (2021-07) Liu, Runchao
    This dissertation explores the radical and queer voices of Asian American women rock musicians and influencers who are often sidelined in scholarship on American popular music by articulating local, national, and transnational forces on racial formation, musical affects, and Asian American experiences. It unsettles the idea that Orientalized aesthetics and affects are tools only for nefarious agendas by exploring how a number of Asian American women artists transform musical Orientalism into a political form of art. In so doing, I argue that these musicians devise novel and socially efficacious ways to effectively debunk the myth of Asian American apoliticism. Over the course of four chapters, my case studies range from the “oriental riff” to post-punk’s postmodern experimentations, from the first notable Asian-women-fronted rock band Fanny to recent musical ventures like Japanese Breakfast and the Drag-On Ladies, and from musical movements such as women’s music, queercore, and riot grrrl to Los Angeles’ Chinatown and Little Tokyo. Through articulating the relationship between sound, race, and affect with these case studies, I contend that the sounds, affective inscrutability, and diasporic sensibilities of Asian America have powerfully redefined U.S. radicalism and challenged hegemonic formulations of what musical activism looks like, feels like, and sounds like.