Oriental studies

The Oriental (also Oriental Studies (s) ) is a scientific discipline that deals with the study of languages and the spiritual and material culture of the Orient employs in its original, complete the entire Asia and adjacent areas, important.

history

As an academic discipline, Oriental Studies was founded in 1795 with the establishment of the École spéciale des langues orientales in Paris. Here taught Silvestre de Sacy (1758–1838), who significantly influenced the development of Oriental Studies. In 1845 the German Oriental Society was founded in Germany , which is still dedicated to the study of Asia , Africa and Oceania . In the course of the 19th century, in addition to text-critical research , Eurocentric concepts such as the "mysteriousness of the Orient" (e.g. through translations of Antoine Galland's translation of 1001 Nights ) or the "backwardness of Islam" were adopted from European colonialism , see also orientalism .

The Institute for Oriental Studies in Vienna has existed since 1886. Currently, one undergraduate and four advanced courses are offered at this institute. These are Oriental Studies (Bachelor of Arts), Ancient Oriental Philology and Oriental Archeology (MA), Arabic Studies (MA), Islamic Studies (MA) and Turkic / Ottoman Studies (MA). Within the humanities and cultural studies, all three fields of study belong to the subjects of philology and cultural history .

Disciplines of oriental studies, some of which extend beyond it, for example, the Assyriologie that Iranian Studies , the Turkish Studies , the Ottoman , the Semitic and Arabic , as well as the Islamic Studies . In a broader sense, Egyptology , Coptic Studies and African Studies are also included.

Oriental studies had a Japanese counterpart with Rangaku .

literature

Edward Said : Orientalism . Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1979, ISBN 3-596-12240-6 .
Sabine Mangold : A "cosmopolitan science". German oriental studies in the 19th century . Franz Steiner, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-515-08515-7 .
Suzanne L. Marchand : German Orientalism in the Age of Empire - Religion, Race, and Scholarship , German Historical Institute, Washington, DC and Cambridge University Press , New York 2009 ISBN 978-0-521-51849-9
Angelika Hartmann : Oriental Studies and the Concept of Islam today . In: Angelika Hartmann, Konrad Schliephake (Ed.): Applied interdisciplinary research on the Orient. Status and prospects in western and eastern Germany . German Orient Institute, Hamburg 1991, ISBN 3-89173-020-9 , p. 121–148 (communications from the German Orient Institute, 41).
Hatem Elliesie: The second volume of the Encyclopaedia Aethiopica in comparison . Orientalist literary newspaper, Berlin 2007, p. 397-407 .
Andrea Polaschegg: The other orientalism. Rules of German-Oriental Imagination in the 19th Century . De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2005.
- Discussed by Wolfgang G. Schwanitz in Süddeutsche Zeitung , discussion on July 17, 2006 (PDF; 351 kB).
Robert Irwin: For lust of knowing: The Orientalists and their enemies . London: Allen Lane 2006, ISBN 0-7139-9415-0 .
- Discussed by Wolfgang G. Schwanitz in Frankfurter Rundschau ( memento from March 3, 2016 in the Internet Archive ), June 26, 2006 (PDF; 152 kB).
Ursula Wokoeck: German Orientalism: The Study of the Middle East and Islam from 1800 to 1945. London: Routledge 2009, ISBN 978-0-415-46490-1 .
- Discussed by Wolfgang G. Schwanitz in Insight Turkey , 12 (2010) 4 (PDF; 932 kB), 225-7.
Zachary Lockman: Contending Visions of the Middle East. The History and Politics of Orientalism. New York: Cambridge University Press 2004, ISBN 0-521-62937-3 .
- Discussed by Wolfgang G. Schwanitz in DAVO-Nachrichten , Mainz, Germany, 23 (2006) 8 (PDF; 99 kB), 77-78.