Mexico uncovers her charms in the Calcutta Book Fair

New Delhi, Jan. 25. - Mexico and its culture are the main protagonists of the traditional Calcutta Book Fair opened today in this city in northeast India which has shifted a large delegation of artists and Mexican representatives.
"We expected a mystery, but we come to the best and have said that this fair will spend nearly two million people," summarized the publications director of the National Council for Culture and the Arts of Mexico (CONACULTA), Laura Emilia Pacheco , contacted by telephone Efe.
They have traveled to India writers, artists and elite chefs, in order to raise awareness for the first time the arts, literature and Mexican cuisine in this massive showcase Asia, which opens on Wednesday after the holiday tomorrow parentheses , Republic Day.
"We have built a pavilion spectacular, made of silk and perfectly round, designed by architect Bernardo Gómez-Pimienta. Circular because it refers to the sun, very important in our culture, "said Pacheco, who expected to house" about 500 visitors per minute. "
In order to secure a "bridge" with India, the Aztec nation, a special guest of the show-in which comes with the slogan "Mexico means culture" - in Calcutta has organized conferences with authors "first" as Jorge Volpi, Alberto Ruy Sanchez, Margo Glantz, David Toscana and Cristina Rivera.
"I have come to discuss the Mexican variety. In India there is a feeling that Latin literature is steeped in magical realism, and the truth is that it is not, "he told Efe Jorge Volpi, asked to deliver the keynote address.
"India and Mexico are two societies of ancient cultural tradition, cultural diversity, accelerated modernization and inequalities. This allows for reflection, "said the writer, who on Wednesday presented the English version of" It's not the earth. "
Throughout the fair, attendees can meet Mexican cuisine-from the hand of the chef Sylvia Kurczyn - watch movies or cheer dance group dances Mexcaltitan while strolling along a plastic installation work Betsabée Romero.
The delegation has brought 3,300 copies of books that provide exposure to deliver after the Indo-Hispanic Library of Calcutta, and placed screens that will project images of the Mexican culture and heritage, as the Day of the Dead.
This is the first time that Mexico is the focus of the Calcutta Book Fair, now devoted to other case to Hispanic countries such as Chile, Spain, Brazil and Cuba, and which this year will present, among others, 15 Latin American countries.
With his landing calcutí, Mexico also expected to return the legacy of writer and poet Octavio Paz, who spent several years as a diplomat in New Delhi and recorded his experiences in memorable works as "Hillside this" or "The Monkey Grammarian."
"We would like to resume this link was diluted," he acknowledged Pacheco, who mentioned the "purpose" to edit an anthology of Indian writers translated into Spanish for the Mexican public, in order to promote cultural exchanges.
Now in its thirty-fourth edition, the fair of Calcutta is one of the most important literary events of the Asian continent, and has every year with hundreds of posts in its nearly 60,000 square meters of space.
For Mexico, the Far trip to India marks the beginning of a year in the country, immersed in their celebration of 200 years of independence and the hundred since the Revolution, will be starring in various book fairs in the world.
According to Pacheco said, Mexican literature will also have a central role in the Salon du Livre in Quebec (Canada) in April, and later in two bookish events in the Dominican Republic and Miami (USA), the latter already in November.
As the fair itself, the large round pavilion architect Gómez-Pimienta has raised in Calcutta will bolt on 7 February, so the opportunity for calcutíes to follow the rhythms, learn the lyrics and try Mexican dishes.

The sari

True to an old promise, we will discuss today the sari, the traditional garment used by millions of women in South Asia. We will review your history and traditional styles, but: "Readers who only want to know how to wear a sari, you can download directly to the end of the text, where a step-by-step." And the rest, let us to the point:

Concept. A sari is a colorful female attire prevailing in the Indian subcontinent. It consists of a long strip of fabric without stitching, ranging from four to nine meters in length and fits the body of the carrier according to different uses and styles. The most common way to wear a sari is wrapped around the waist women for one end, while the other edge passes over the shoulder, the stomach exposed.

Women usually get the subcontinent over the sari blouse called choli small or Ravika. The choli has short sleeves, low neck cut is presented to help women to withstand the harsh summer in southern Asia. The heat is such that in some places, like the region of Orissa , women's breasts are coated directly with the fabric of the sari. The cholis may not cover the back and are of varied thickness. They come equipped with a variety of reasons, such as mirrors, and ornate designs when compared to Western clothes. The sari is a garment common to all India.

Origin and history. The word 'sari' evolved from the Prakrit word (derived from Sanskrit) "sattika" mentioned in the early Jain and Buddhist literature.

India's textile history traces the origins of the sari in the Indus Valley Civilization, which flourished no less than between 2,800 and 1,800 BC in the western part of the continent, part of the territory currently occupied by Pakistan. The first known representation of the sari is a statue of a priestess of the Indus Valley, dressed in a cloth.

Old Tamil poems like Kadambari Silappadhikaram or describe sexy women dressed in saris. In Indian classical tradition and under the treaty Natya Shastra (which describes the classical dance and costumes), the navel of the Supreme Being is considered the source of life and creativity, and so the sari must leave the stomach bare.

Some historians believe that the dhoti dress, a kind of shell pants garment and the oldest India, is the forerunner of the sari. Although today is only a guy thing, until the fourteenth century was worn by both sexes equally.

Still preserved sculptures of the Gandhara school, Mathura and Gupta (I-VI centuries AD) that show goddesses and dancers showing what appears to be a dhoti in wide release, covering the legs widely and then floats to make a long and decorative fold ahead of them. The bra is not visible.

Other sources maintain that everyday clothes consisted of a dhoti, combined a chest strap and a film that could be used to cover the upper body or head. It still exists in Kerala (South India) a similar pledge.

What is generally accepted, without exception, is that related to the sari costumes, shawls and veils have been worn by Indian women in its current form for hundreds of years.

But controversy persists about the choli or blouse and undergarments. Some researchers believe that these components did not exist before the arrival of British India, and think they were introduced to satisfy the conservative Victorian idea of modesty and decency. What they say is that once women only wore the cloth, and left exposed breasts and upper body.

Although some historians have examples to refute this version, Kerala and Tamil Nadu (south) and Orissa (East) is still possible to see some examples of this practice. And classic poetic texts indicate that during the sangam period, one piece of cloth used to cover both the lower body and head, so the stomach and breasts were in the air.

Styles sari. The most common way to wear a sari is wrapped around the waist, and then take the loose end of the fabric up to slide it over his shoulder, but the air leaving the stomach. Although the sari can be dressed in different ways, some of which require a particular form or fabric length. Thus, experts categorize the style Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi, the Dravida, the madisara, the Kodagu, the Gond tribal or styles. But the most popular of them all is the style "nivi" from the region of Andhra Pradesh in southeastern India.

The fabric nivi begins with one end of the sari tucked in their belts. The fabric is wrapped once in the lower body, and then attached in folds in front of the navel. The upper end of the folds also be inserted through the part of the waist belt. This creates a very decorative, that Indian poets in the past compared with the petals of a flower. The tutorial provided at the end of the article follows this style.

After further rotation around the waist, the loose end is passed over her shoulder. This end is called the pallu or pallav. We must pass diagonally across the torso. It has crossed from the right hip to left shoulder, so that the stomach is partially visible. The navel can be hidden or view depending on the preference of the wearer. The long end of the pallu coming to the back is often highly decorated. The pallu hanging freely or can be be used to cover the head, or just the neck, passing it the right shoulder.

This style was popularized by the paintings of Raja Ravi Varma, which modified the southern style. In one of his paintings, the Indian subcontinent was depicted as a woman wearing a sari-style ethereal nivi.

The sari as a garment. In the past, saris were of silk or cotton. The rich could afford finely-woven embroidery, diaphanous silk saris that, according to folklore, could pass through an annular ring. The poor wore cotton saris, fabrics page. They were all handmade, and represented a considerable outlay of time and money.

The simplest of saris village are often decorated with lines sewn into the fabric. The cheap saris were also treated with block printing using wood, dried plants or ironed. The most expensive ornaments or brocade are geometric, floral and figurative as part of the fabric. Sometimes the strings are pressed and then tissues. Sometimes, the yarns of different colors were woven into an ornamented edge, a developed pallu and often small repeated accents in the fabric. For elite saris, these patterns could be sewn with threads of gold or silver, style "zari".

Sometimes the saris were further decorated with various types of embroidery, either colored silk (resham), or threads of silver, gold or gems (zardozi). The cheap versions of the wires used Zardozi synthetic and imitation stones, such as fake pearls and Swarovski crystals.

In modern times, saris are woven in machine mechanics and are made of artificial fibers such as polyester or nylon, which does not require ironing. Machine printed or stitched with simple patterns made with floats in the back of the sari. This can create an elaborate appearance on the front, but ugly in the rear.

Naturally, the saris made ​​and decorated by hand are much more expensive than the machine imitations. Although they are losing market share rapidly, hand saris are still popular for weddings and social occasions.

How to wear a sari. Here, I provide the details to wear a saree step by step, following the style nivi. Naturally, the fundamental condition is to have one (although I know cases of hard-liners who mounted it with a curtain), and is also very useful to run the steps in front of a mirror. I hope you serve. Voilà.

1. Wear a skirt false. Hold firmly the top of the fabric (the inside) around your waist.

2. Wrap the sari waist and firmly puts the top of the fabric (again, on the inside) by the false waist skirt.

3. Adjust the fabric around your waist while keeping the same height, and on reaching the front, the corresponding subject of the sari at the waist of the skirt false.

4. Starting from the right, fold the left as necessary the excess fabric past the navel.

5. Ask how many folds you think necessary, but usually their number between seven and twelve.

6. Grab all at once and folds in the same way, and adjusts the height above the ground so that this match the rest of the fabric.

7. Put the top of the pleats in the skirt to hold them false, and goes back again for the remaining fabric.

8. Making available the rest of the fabric with your right hand and pass it to the left.

9. Hold the cloth well with your left hand and makes the necessary adjustments in the pallu with the right.

10. Lower your left shoulder pallu of her sari to pass naturally to the back. You can use a safety pin to prevent movement. And enjoy.

Then you can a video in English with a practical demonstration of the steps described above. I hope this information has been helpful.

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Slumdog Millionaire, America in Bombay

"Slumdog Millionaire" is the American dream in the streets of Bombay. "I want the best of both worlds." The phrase is one of the Indians winning Academy Awards, AR Rahman, who also won two awards: Best Original Score and Best Song. The two worlds are India and the West, and their relationship has been fastened with "Slumdog Millionaire" director, screenwriter and producer are British. Most of the actors and the stage are purely Indian. The eight Oscars that won the film have given way to criticism of all signs and, in India, to the fever of the middle class, which considers the protagonists heroes because he understands his success as though money was English. Reflection of the Indian desire for recognition abroad.

"National pride has taken a different pose: 'India has finally done something on the world stage'. One wonders why the world stage we care so much. Each portrait of India is regarded with suspicion paranoid eyes. Anything with Indian flavor you get an award is immediately taken as a matter of national pride, "writes today one of many press commentators.

In India, "Slumdog Millionaire", for his argument that looks fantastic, easily passed the actual discourse and everyday life. It is a country full of children as Latika and Jamal, kids who work hard to survive and do not always succeed. The reality of the slums has been widely documented and obvious in any tourist trip, but paradoxically the Indian cinema, much more interested in portraying the growing luxury as a way of escapism, has excluded from the screens to their dirty players. In fact, the main criticism he has received the film in the country accused the film of "making pornography of poverty."

This criticism follows a nationalist reaction against foreign interference. It has been a constant in history, starting with the very Mahatma Gandhi, when he called a "report of inspector of sewers" a 1927 book published by the American Katherine Mayo and considered offensive against Indian culture. Most of the national scribes applauded and still is the reaction of Gandhi and want to justify that India is more than misery and that the West has to look to the country with poor or partial eyes.

On the one hand, the Indian elite had better take seriously the criticisms: 80 years have passed, and there are witnesses the slumdogs. But there is some truth to the Indians who accuse Westerners of focusing on poverty and ignore the many signs of change that India is experiencing in recent years. Traditionally, the visions of the West on this continent have been marked by four prejudice, according to Harold Isaac: first, an India of maharajas and exotic wizards, two, a mystical contemplative religious sadhus, thirdly, devotion and worship of gods of many heads, and, finally, India pathetic: children with swollen bellies who die abandoned in the streets.

All of them are still alive in the Western subconscious. India also add one fifth that has been incorporated successfully in "Slumdog Millionaire": the globalized country, with its customer care centers Western, beautiful class of Bombay, its luxury competition ranks first dreams and squander their wealth posh neighborhoods. India is the fifth and his confrontation with the traditional call it "India (urban middle class is easily stated in English) from Bharat (country name in Hindi: the lower classes and rural life of ancient customs and miserable).

In the slums, religious instability, latrines and garbage collectors, police torture, child trafficking and poverty of Bharat, the film comes to expensive cars, the mansions of the rich (not always in the hands of the Mafia) , designer clothes and elegant costumes of TV, ready to copy Western models. The rise of Jamal and Latika picaresque is a journey from Bharat to India, two blocks of different real-force-perhaps with a more fluid transitions and relationships in large cities than in rural areas.

But the real issue is that "Slumdog Millionaire" is cinema. No one would ever fly a serious analysis of America only with the vision that transmits Hollywood films. Why do it then with India, a country that is almost a continent?

To make possible the story of Jamal and Latika, the writer draws on classical topics in the West, a history marked by the American dream through hard work and a little luck the sky is the limit. "Here's a little of the real America, small. Money. " A dream that India has few exponents, because society is still far less permeable and is marked by almost unbridgeable gaps of caste, religion, language, social class or region. Very bizarre has to be the true story of Jamal, a poor Muslim from Bombay, to start working as a tour guide in Agra, serve tea in a call center or to speak with fluency in English for a game show. No problem for that is Hollywood.

"I want the best of both worlds." And "Slumdog Millionaire" is placed over the gap between India and Bharat, a crucial crossroads to bring a story understandable to Western viewers. Any movie has some artifact: unlike Bollywood, attempts to concentrate the Western canon over a story about two hours under a veneer of plausibility. The question is not so much that its protagonists are real, but to show that they could be: one that manages to connect Jamal from the slums of India with the contests.

Before the rain of Oscars, "Slumdog Millionaire" got a good collection in India, but without reaching the levels of the highest grossing U.S. film "Spiderman 3". After the ceremony, most politicians have been quick to send his congratulations to the team India and some regions have even allowed the tax-free distribution of the film "to create history in Indian cinema." The accusations of "pornography of poverty" has been diluted as a sugar and heroes of Slumdog have gone to the official with an ease impossible for any "sewer inspector's report."

That is, the film has been accepted because although it shows the misery of his message is benign suburbs and the hero manages to rise above all despite the difficulties. The American Dream underpins a bridge between India and Bharat is still in embryo in much of the country.

"An Indian of 45 years knows he is not rich. But if you know your child might be, it already acts as a motivation. I think we should judge ourselves by how much social mobility are able to provide. It really is an old Indian dream, but perhaps we're seeing now, "he says in an interview the head of the powerful Planning Commission of India, Montek Singh Ahluwalia.

In the real India proliferate television contests as a gateway to a better life, but the language barriers of caste or community or prevent the dream is as American Indian. Also, always has been repeated here that the Indians are very permeable to the rules and they are much to the example, as shown in the figure itself of Gandhi. The state, despite its gigantic bureaucracy (perhaps because of it) is unable to dispose of everyday problems and serious citizens, let alone to give welfare to its population. So in many places, people assume the role of the state and build parks, roads and cities.

Proof of this is the story of Dasrath Manjhi, the "symbol of resistance." The village of Manjhi was isolated in the mountains of impoverished Bihar (north), so we had to travel long distances to obtain food or water. One day the wife of Manjhi slipped while crossing a mountain. And then Manjhi decided enough was enough. He took a hammer and chisel and alone, with his own hands, started digging a road in the mountains.

He built a hut with the work to spend less time and did not stop even though people considered him crazy. For 22 years, Manjhi excavated solo and unaided to the people of his town could use the road through the mountains, 100 meters long and 10 wide.

Manjhi died of cancer in 2007 without state recognition, but with a broad appreciation of the local people and much of society: children of his people can finally study and careers that were once 50 miles now ten. Perhaps the greatest achievement of Manjhi has been the force of his example. This week it was learned that a group of villagers in Kaimur district in the same region, is building another road six miles from the mountains to find his young "bride".

This is just one example of how things work in the lives of most Indians. But for once, the two children, slum dwellers of the movie actors (characters Latika and Salim children's) have been lucky: the American dream advocated by "Slumdog Millionaire" really going to be met for them, because the Government has Mahararashtra promised to give to their families two apartments that will allow them to leave the slums where they live.

"Here it is so hot and so many mosquitoes. It takes me hours to fall asleep. "He said Azhar, the boy who plays the role of Selim, on his return from Hollywood to his shack. His father, ill with tuberculosis and unable to work, slapped him for refusing to grant an interview. And Rubina Ali (little Latika), now claims his mother, who had left home five years ago. Rubina and Azhar will have new home, but their lives now belong to the cinema and will be sleeping. Other slumdogs not so lucky.

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Orientalism

The term "Orientalism" refers to the imitation or the example of aspects of Eastern cultures in the West by writers, designers and artists, but also makes ref erence to the empathetic attitude towards the region by a writer or any other person . An "Orientalist" may be also the person in charge of academic Oriental Studies.

The meaning of u n turn acquired the controversial work of Edward Said of the same name, published in 1978. Said uses the term to describe two traditions, artistic and academic, hostile and contemptuous views of the East by the West, partly influenced by the era of European imperialism in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Used in this sense, the "Orientalism" includes interpretations of Eastern culture marked by prejudice. Said criticized the academic tradition, custom writers such as Bernard Lewis. In contrast, the term has also been used by other scholars to refer to writers of the old imperialist attitudes favorable to Eastern culture.

Meaning of témino. Orientalism comes from the Latin word "oriens" (East) and also the Greek he'oros' (the direction of the rising sun). East West is the opposite, non-trivial issue in the old order of the known world: Western Europe was considered and the east end of the world was known East. Hence the conception of the Orient, with its Eurocentric varnish, has changed over time: for the Roman Empire "East" referred to the current Middle East. L did not know then as flourishing cultures of the Far East, just as in the Far East was unknown in Europe.

Over time, the meaning of "East" was moving east as western explorers reached new heights. The "wise men" biblical "East" came from the "East", with the probable meaning of Arabia and the Persian Empire. Europe, however, became aware that beyond this, reaching the Pacific coast, whose space was called the Far East. In the West, these changes in meaning over time add to the confusion (historical and geographical) to Oriental studies.

Are however areas where "East" and "oriental" denote definitions and outdated. The "oriental spices" come from regions between the Middle East and Indochina. Travel in the "Orient Express" just come to Istanbul in the east side of Europe.

In Spanish, "oriental" is a term referring to the peoples, cultures and gods of the areas of East and Southeast Asia populated by Mongoloid races.

The arts. Imitation oriental style. One of the meanings of Orientalism is adopting motifs, styles and arguments in art, architecture and design. The "turquerie" as they called that old fashion, began in the fifteenth century and reached the century.

Early use of motives taken from the Indian subcontinent has been sometimes called the "Indian style". In this stream there are many examples in the UK, the main actor of imperialism in the area, as Sezincote Guildhall or house, but also in Potsdam, Stuttgart and Toronto.

The term "chinoiserie", French, includes fashion by Chinese motifs in the decoration of Western art, in successive waves since the seventeenth century, with a special place during the Rococo period. Since the Renaissance, European designers were trying to imitate the technical sophistication of Chinese ceramics, with modest success. The "chinoiserie" (chinería) appears most f orce in countries with active East India Companies, as the United Kingdom, Denmark, Holland and France. In the European imagination was of particular importance china, imitated in the Dutch city of Delft or German Meissen.

Chinese-flavored appeared gardens and recreational areas in the Rococo German palaces and the tiles of the palace of Aranjuez, in Madrid. Tables for tea and Chinese toilets, sober pictures of the furniture Xing start to populate the noblest halls of Europe. There are small pagodas in the chimneys and larger parks.

For art inspired by Japan, the key date is 1860, with the arrival of Japanese woodcut prints and their influence on artists such as Monet or McNeill Whistler.

Representation of the East in art and literature. The representation of the "Moors" or "Turkish" begins in the Middle Ages and continues through the Renaissance and Baroque. The first outlines of orientalism in Western art biblical scenes appear in the first Dutch painting, where some secondary figures, such as Romans or Jews, are dressed in exotic costumes and wearing turbans include the nearby this contemporary. Renaissance Venice shows a particular interest in the Ottoman Empire in painting, with Gentille Bellini and Vittore Carpaccio to the head. At the time, were already more accurate representations, and the men were already white.

In the nineteenth century, increase oriental scenes. In many works repeats the myth of an exotic and decadent East, dominated by corruption. These works focus on the Middle Eastern Islamic cultures. Artists such as Delacroix, Gérôme or Roubtzoff Islam reflected in his paintings, often collect odalisques. Ingres, director of the French Academy of Painting, painted a Turkish bath in which generalized the Eastern eroticism and became socially acceptable in the eyes of France. Although all bodies probably belonged to the same model, had called the play "A brothel in Paris", this would have been controversial. The sensuality and was considered an integral part of the East, and this view persisted in the early twentieth century, as seen in Matisse's nudes. In these works, the "east" is often a mirror of Western culture itself, even as a way to express their faces hidden or illegal.

The use of exotic East and went back into the world of cinema, particularly in some successes of Rudolph Valentino. Later, the rich Arabic became a popular resort, especially during the oil crisis of the 70. In the nineties, that image gave way to a more negative: the terrorist villain common in western movies.

Edward Said, "Orientalism." A central idea is that Edward Said on the Middle Western knowledge is not built on facts but on imagined constructs that see Eastern societies as fundamentally similar and different characteristics shared crucial to the West. There is thus a priori knowledge that sets a opposite East West. Knowledge of the East is built with literary texts and historical data that often have a limited understanding of the facts of the Middle East.

Before Said's book, "Oriental" was used as opposed to "Western". Comparisons between the two entities were often unfavorable to the East, although the term was used by respectable institutions. But the word "Orient" fell into dispute with the birth of the term "Orientalism". Following ideas of Michel Foucault, Said emphasized the relationship between power and knowledge in the field of thought-both academic and popular-especially with the European vision of the Islamic world. For Said, East and West acted like two sides of the coin, in which East was only a negative complement Western culture. The work of another thinker, Antonio Gramsci, also influenced the perception of Said. In particular, Said used the concept of hegemony to analyze the pervasiveness of Orientalist constructs and representations among Western scholars.

Said limited his academic discussion to the study of Middle East culture and history of Africa and Asia, but also said that Orientalism is a significant dimension of modern political and intellectual culture. His perspective of the late nineteenth century, when the departments in the area had left the colonial paradigm. Still, this paradigm continued in works such as Bernard Lewis as late as 1977. The idea of an East is key to define the West. Therefore, the study of Greco-Persian wars affect the comparison between the democratic tradition of Athens and the Persian Empire's authoritarian system, but as a way to extrapolate to a more general comparison between Greeks and Persians, and also between East and West, between Europe and Asia, without reference to the many Greek cities also were governed by authoritarian regimes.

Said tries to unravel the power relations colonizer - colonized latent in the texts of writers and academics in Europe. His work has implications beyond the Middle East, particularly on attitudes towards China or India. "Orientalism" is one of the foundational texts of postcolonial studies. Later, Said developed and modified his ideas in the 1993 book "Culture and Imperialism."

Many scholars now use Said's work to try to alleviate Western ideological bases, often taken for granted without critical discussion. Some have come to maintain the idea that the West's self was constructed from the difference with others. If Europe is left of Christianity as non-Byzantium, modern Europe from the end of the late sixteenth century defined itself as the "not-Turkey."

Said sets out some definitions of "Orientalism" in the introduction to his work. Some have been more influential than others.

• "A way of approaching East based on the special place it occupies in the Middle Western European experience.
• "A style of thought based on ontological or epistemological distinction made ​​between" East "and" West. "
• "Western style for dominating, restructuring and show his authority over the Orient".
• "Orientalism is particularly valuable as a sign of power on the East Atlantic-European rather than true speech of the East ".
• "Distribution of geopolitical awareness into aesthetic texts, academic, economic, sociological, historical and philological.

In his preface to the 2003 edition, Said made ​​a warning against "falsely unifying rubrics that invent collective identities" with terms such as America, the West and Islam, "leading to what he considers a" clash of civilizations "prefabricated .

Positions contrary to Said. Critics Said's theory, as the historian Bernard Lewis, argue that the review contains errors conceptual, methodological and factual. Said ignores many genuine contributions to the study of Eastern cultures made ​​by Westerners during the Enlightenment and the Victorian era. Said's theory does not explain why the French and English studied Islam in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, long before that will control the Middle East. And he was criticized for having ignored the contributions of Italian scholars, Dutch, and especially Germans. For Lewis, the intellectuals of these countries are more important in European Orientalism than the French or the English, despite the disconnect between the studies and their colonial presence. And Said's theory, says Lewis, does not explain why studies failed Orientalists advance the causes of imperialism.

"What purpose served imperial deciphering the ancient Egyptian, for example, and the restoration of knowledge and pride Egyptians for its old and forgotten past" (B. Lewis).

Lewis argued that Orientalism is born of humanism. A different ideology of imperialism, and sometimes opposed to it. The Orientalist study of Islam born of rejection of religious dogma, and served to spur awareness of alternative cultures. Lewis calls "intellectual protectionism" the argument that only those beyond a culture can usefully discuss its components.

Said Lewis responds to the arguments by saying that this should be placed in context. One of the main arguments is that Orientalism Said was used as an instrument of the Empire, and the author claims that criticism of Lewis is not disinterested, but part of the neo-imperialist positions of Lewis, sometimes masked.

Lewis is aligned with schools of thought that promote neocon vision for U.S. policy in the Middle East. Most intellectuals are lined with Said, which is criticized by supporters of Lewis as a bias that has led to funding cuts in those academic departments. The website www.campuswatch.org , for example, encourages students to report the prejudices of their teachers.

Bryan Turner criticizes the work of Said saying that there are multiple ways and traditions of Orientalism. So Said criticizes attempts to place them all under the same light. Other critics point out that, despite the fantasies and distortions, the notion of "East" as a negative mirror of the West is not usually because the view changes according to different cultures. In any case, it is a logical necessity that other cultures are identified as "different". And there are some who maintain that Said criticizes the "essentialism" of Orientalists in categorizing the East, but he falls into the stereotype of the characteristics of the West.

The West viewed from the east. In contrast, many of the concepts associated with the derogatory "Orientalism" short-western but with a reverse direction, in the epilogue of "Chapter of the Western Regions" of Hou Hanshu. This is the official history of the Han Dynasty (25-221 years). The book is compiled by Fan Ye (d. 445) and succinctly expresses the Han opinion "Western" culture Hu, in the current western China.

Hu Westerners are far

They live in an area outside.

The products of their country are beautiful

But his character is corrupt and frivolous.

They follow the rites of China

Han has the canonical books.

They do not obey the way of the gods.

What a pity!

What stubborn!

Although this quote refers to the west of China, there are plenty of stereotypical representations of Western works of Indian artists, Japanese and Chinese. But, in contrast, some Eastern artists adopted western styles. The Indian painter Ravi Varma painted works of some images indistinguishable Western Orientalists. In the late twentieth century, many Western cultural motifs and images began to appear in the Asian culture and art, especially in Japan. The English words and phrases are prominent in popular culture and advertising in Japan. Many characters, themes and mythological figures of the "anime" Japanese are derived from various Western cultural traditions.

Recently, the term "Occidentalism" has been coined to refer to the negative view of the West present at times in the current Eastern societies.