(no subject)

So, there's a piece about Victorian Orientalism here.

I think all you really need to know about it is that is contains the following statement:

Orientalism may be premised on a terribly flawed approach, and many past Orientalist studies may lack terribly in both facts and analysis, but the concept is not steeped in bigotry

And is in response to criticisms of the use of the frankly silly sounding portmanteau "Victorientalism" (which seems redundant to me -- doesn't "Orientalism" automatically call to mind the Victorian and Edwardian eras?) to describe "a positive, transcultural blend" of, um, stuff.

Also, "past Orientalist studies" implies that there's such a thing as current Orientalist studies, which unless the writer is referring to historeography on the Victorian "orientalism" phenomenon itself, I kind of doubt. Surely people no longer use the word "Oriental" in actual real-world scholarship?

Somehow, coining that term and dedicated an entire magazine issue to it produced backlash. Gee, I can't imagine why. *headdesks forever*