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Filmanalyser med inriktning på representationen av Afrika, afrikanen och västvärlden i Blood Diamond, The Constant Gardener och Hotel Rwanda ur ett postkolonialt perspektiv.

[extract] “Although Edward does not appear in the film, he exists in every aspect of it” commented Mariam Said, a widow of Edward W. Said (Siglo 2006, Yuri 2006a, p. 30). In April and May 2006, a documentary film called Edward W. Said: Out of Place was screened in Tokyo. The film was produced by a Japanese film director Sato Makoto who visited places and people in the Middle East with the guide of Said’s well known autobiography Out of Place: A Memoir (Siglo 2006). Sato starts his journey from Lebanon, where Said is now resting. His camera catches scenery from both Palestine and Israel and people from both sides. Ordinary people living in the area appear as interviewees as well as the family of Said – Mariam, his daughter Najla and son Wadie – people like Noam Chomsky, his colleagues and friends. Sato’s focus is on people and their lives in the most controversial area in the Middle East. People living on the border are what Sato showed on the screen and Said himself was one of them. A book with pictures was published to coincide with the release of the film (Nakano & Sato 2006). It contains many interviews, which could not be included in the film because of the restriction on the length of the film and Sato’s record of filming (Siglo 2006).

Edward Said exposes how the U.S. stereotype of the Orient is constructed, hegemonized, and reproduced. The cities that the scholars talk about, the administrators administer, and the planners plan are also perceptions. This article investigates the construction of the perception of low-income areas in Colombo, Sri Lanka, as problems by its British colonial authorities in the 1910s–20s. It undertakes the cultural "unpacking" of this continuing colonial discourse. The article focuses on how the "concrete" living environments that had existed for many decades were re-presented as problems and as objective knowledge. It addresses a conflict and negotiation between two European groups: the British and British colonial authorities in Colombo. I argue that the tipping point of this transformation was the introduction of the Housing Ordinance of 1915 and that the transformation has more to do with British town planning discourses, of which the ordinance is a part, than with local conditions or indigenous or colonial viewpoints. However, this social production of urban problems must be seen within layers of power stemming from the imperial-colonial structures but mediated by regional officers who varied the practice of colonialism while maintaining the ideology of the "orientalist discourse." It demonstrates that planners and authorities do not have a privileged vantage point to view the city, nor are their positions superior.

This thesis deals with Orientalism as it occurs in the period in Swedish literary and cultural history commonly known as “nittitalet” (the nineties), roughly the last decade of the 19th century. The study explores how the interest for the so-called Orient is manifested in works of fiction and poetry as well as in works of non-fiction genres. It also seeks to relate textual features of separate works to general tendencies in European and Swedish culture at the time. A crucial part of the analysis is devoted to the early works of Verner von Heidenstam. Authors concerned are also Oscar Levertin, Sophie Elkan and Selma Lagerlöf, all belonging to the generation commonly known as “nittitalisterna” – the writers of the nineties. Furthermore, the thesis analyzes travel books of two different kinds, written by Christian pilgrims A. Nordlander, Nils Beskow and P.P. Waldenström, and by journalist and newspaper correspondent Alexis Kuylenstjerna respectively. The phenomenon of Orientalism contains problems on several levels. Most fundamentally, it is imbued by complex questions of representation. More pragmatically, it is obvious that individual authors make use of Orientalist traditions in various ways and for different purposes. While it is obvious that Swedish writers of the time adopt Orientalist conventions concerning styles and rhetorical tropes as well as ideological patterns, there is also a recurrent national theme in their work. A common feature is namely a critique of colonialism and an explicit dissociation from what one conceives of as European cynicism and overbearing manners. As a consequence, this study argues, there is an ambiguous attitude towards the all-European Orientalist tradition in which one is writing.

A reflection on the relevance for the postcolonial Said debate for the study of Chinese civilization.

[Preface to Sw. ed. of E.W. Said, Culture and Imperialism]

von Sarah Isabella Blum, BA, Masterarbeit Universität Innsbruck 2020

von Sarah Isabella Blum, BA, Masterarbeit Universität Innsbruck 2020