295 / 176
Orientalism
’s Discourse
295
IV. Conclusion
If history, as Fredric Jameson proclaims, is “what hurts”
(1982: 102), then for Said, the act of writing
Orientalism
is not
only a way of speaking truth to power but also coming to terms
with imperialism’s brutal legacy. By misreading Foucault’s theory of
discourse, Said, as an individual author, is able to challenge the
discourse of colonialism by providing a much-needed corrective to
“the way the world [has] thought about the relationship between
the West and its ‘others’” (Iskandar & Rustom, 2010: 291). In
doing so,
Orientalism
will continue to exert its anxiety of influence
on the next generation of scholars and beyond.