Rethinking Orientalism : Women, Travel and the Ottoman Harem

by Reina Lewis

The oppressed yet highly sexualized woman of the Muslim harem is arguably the pivotal figure of Western orientalism. Yet, as Reina Lewis demonstrates, while orientalist thinking had recently been challenged, Western understandings of Middle Eastern culture remain limited. This book presents alternative dialogues between Ottoman and Western women. Lewis examines, from the position of cultural theory, the published autobiographical accounts about segregated life of self-identified Oriental women Demetra Vaka Brown, Halide Edib, Zeyneb Hanum, Melek Hanum and Grace Ellison. Bringing her subjects vividly to life, Lewis uses these texts to challenge the Western orientalist stereotypes that have become commonplace within postcolonial theory.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

Reviews

[Veronica DreamDjinn · Rating 2 out of 5]

I understand it is an academic work, but it was difficult to read even as such, for reasearch. Moreover, the title is misleading - based on its contents, a more adequate title would have been "The (Harem and the) Emancipation of Turkish/Ottoman Women in the 19th Century" (I added "Harem and" because the author herself said she intentionally introduced that word in the title to pique readers' interest). In any case, it is very important to mention the century, as I was expecting something more removed in time, given that the Ottoman Empire had a very long history. How disappointed I was...

Apart from that, there were also many cumbersome digressions - for example, the one on women favoured by Pre-Raphaelites. A couple of paragraphs would have sufficed for the purposes of this work. And I also would have appreciated more excerpts from the cited works and more descriptions of the harem and Ottoman women's life. As such, the book proved to be mostly useless for my research, despite its title. Not to mention it is very expensive (double my dismay), and unnecessarily heavy (literally), which makes it unpleasant to lug around.

[Funda Guzer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Türkleri yabancı birinden dinlemek çok iyi geldi . Bence Türkiye de tek taraflı görüşler var ve çıkılamıyor , sorular sorulamıyor . Ama yazar kitabın ilk yarısında ilginç konulara değiniyor . Ama kalan yarısı çok zor geçti çünkü iki tane daha kadından daha bahsediyor. Oldukça zor okudum ama kesinlikle okunur bir kitap. İçinde referans verdiği kitapları da okumaya çalışacağım .

[Kinsey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reina Lewis does an outstanding job responding to Edward Said's "Orientalism" in this work. A great read for those who are studying orientalism, the so-called "Middle East", or just trying to expand your theory knowledge.