American Oriental Research Articles

Interview with Professor Aaron Hughes: American Orientalism and Understanding the Quran in the Light of Late Antiquity

This study includes our interview with Aaron Hughes, who continued his studies on Islam in the United States. Hughes, a professor at the University of Rochester, is highly knowledgeable and widely recognized in the field of Religious Studies. The questions we posed to Hughes were re-lated to two subjects: American Orientalism and Late Antiquity. As far as we can determine, there are very few studies on these two subjects in Türkiye. This interview will attempt to contribute to the Turkish academic community. The question of which centuries are included in the Late An-tiquity created by Peter Brown is a matter of debate. This period, which generally covers the pe-riod from the 2nd century AD to the end of the 8th century in historiography, is constantly being stretched by researchers in the United States. Garth Fowden, who expanded the period even fur-ther and extended it to a longer period, put forward the theory of the “First Millennium”. This periodization, which has made a great leap forward in the field of history with the studies con-ducted in recent years, has begun to be used effectively in Qur’anic studies. Angelika Neuwirth, a German-born orientalist, has conducted an intertextual reading by placing the Quran within the epistemic fabric of Late Antiquity with her Corpus Coranicum project. This method, which is also used in the works of American orientalists such as Stephen Shoemaker, Daniel Beck, Sean Anthony, Gabriel Said Reynolds and David Powers, seems likely to dominate the field in the coming years.

Arabic Narrative in American Voices: Edgar Allan Poe and John Barth

Abstract In this paper, I set out to demonstrate how Poe and Barth understand Arabic narrative showcased in The Arabian Nights, and why they show so much approximation, deviation, and swerve. In their misreading, both Poe and Barth reveal much about the mechanism of the incorporation of Arabic narrative as much as they convey their own cultural and literary concerns. Premised on postcolonial and postmodern theory, I show how the American Orientalism of Poe and Barth perpetrates a misrepresentation of both Arabic narrative, Muslims, and the East. While Foucault’s ‘conditions of possibility’ pertain to a cultural context that is bound to inform writing, there is also the predilection of both writers to maraud Alf Laylah wa-Laylah as their free zone, a colony of a sort.

Parental expressions of love in Chinese American immigrant families: Implications for children's attachment security.

Harlow's seminal work on the nature of attachment focused on the importance of warm, responsive, and loving relationships in children's healthy development. While the need for love and care is arguably universal, the ways in which these emotions are expressed can vary across cultural contexts. We examined how Chinese American parents' expressions of love were associated with children's attachment security. A total of 110 Chinese American immigrant parent-child dyads (children 7-11 years old, 49% girls) participated in 3-min conversations in which parents were instructed to communicate love and care. Proposition-level analyses in speech (total 8825 propositions) identified three types of affection: training (guan and chiao shun); relational affection (qin); and validation (acceptance and encouragement of child's own expression of emotion, thoughts, and behaviors). Higher training was observed in parents with lower American orientation and lower income. Higher relational affection was observed in parents with lower income. Higher validation was observed in parents with higher income. Using path analyses, training and validation were found to be positively associated with children's attachment security beyond parenting styles. Effects of parents' relational affection were moderated by children's American orientation. Results demonstrate how immigrant parents draw on multiple cultural scripts to express love and care. These findings expand traditional concepts of parental love in immigrant families and illustrate how bicultural expressions of love can shape attachment security in middle childhood. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at https://youtu.be/HqUfIDxkFsE RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: Analyses of parent-child discussions identified three parental affection styles (i.e., training, relational affection, and validation) as expressions of love and care in Chinese American immigrant families. Training and validation were positively associated withchildren's attachment security. Relational affection was associated with lowerattachment security for children with higher American cultural orientation, suggesting the effects of parent-child expressions of love are shaped by acculturation.

The Possibility of Writing the History of the Qurʾān by Bypassing Islamic Narratives and Materials -Stephen Shoemaker Example

Research shows that Qurʾānic studies in the West have navigated away from the Nöldekean-Schwallian paradigm in recent years. By using this paradigm, Western thinkers attempt to write the history of the Qurʾān with the support of Islamic narrations. American orientalist Stephen Shoemaker claims that the revisionist school broke this paradigm and brought a new perspective to the field in 1977. Stating that the Nöldekean-Schwallian paradigm, which followed the standard Sunnī Qurʾānic history, blocked the field until the 1980s, Shoemaker criticizes Islamic narrations and does not take them as references. Shoemaker believes that the studies will not go beyond the Sunnī paradigm by using purely Islamic narrations. The author, who claims that the Qurʾān emerged and was written in a political environment, argues that historians should consider the works of the surrounding cultures. Shoemaker, who uses the historical criticism method used in holy book readings in the West, focuses on what happened to the Qurʾān rather than what the Qurʾān tells us. Is it possible to write the history of the Qurʾān by bypassing Islamic narrations? The main focus of this article is to reveal the answer to this question through Stephen Shoemaker's work Creating the Qur'an. The work, published in 2022, was seen by Fred Donner as a milestone for the field and stated that everyone working in this department should read it. Our study will ultimately discuss the impasses of Shoemaker's approach. In this context, the research will generally apply data collection, text, and discourse analysis methods.

Relationship Between Acculturation and Mental Health in Korean American Family Caregivers of Community-Dwelling Persons Living with Dementia.

Despite the growing number of Korean American (KA) family caregivers for persons with dementia, little is known about how acculturation might affect caregiving stress in this population. Acculturation is a variable of considerable interest in caregiving research due to its significance in understanding the impact of cultural perceptions and expectations on the caregiving role and its relation to mental health outcomes. A cross-sectional descriptive study using baseline data from an ongoing randomized controlled trial of dementia caregiver intervention was performed to examine the association between acculturation and mental health outcomes among KA caregivers (n = 32) for persons with dementia. Self-report survey questionnaires including a bidirectional acculturation scale, Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale, the Perceived Stress Scale, and the Zarit Burden Interview were administered in person in English or Korean by trained bilingual community health workers. The primary independent variable, acculturation, was assessed using a 24-item inventory. It measured two sets of cultural orientation: Korean orientation and American orientation. The mean age was 67 years (SD = 11.8) and 87% were women. Half of the caregivers were spouses of persons with dementia, while the other half were offspring caregivers. In the multiple linear regression model, caregiver acculturation toward Korean cultural orientation had a significant and positive association with depressive symptoms (β = .62; SE = 0.25; p-value = .02) and perceived stress (β = .29; SE = 0.13; p-value = .03) after adjusting for age and self-efficacy. No significant effect of American cultural orientation was found for caregiver burden, perceived stress, or depressive symptoms. Our findings suggest that exploring the role of acculturation in caregiving and its relation to outcomes, particularly caregiver distress, may be valuable for future studies aiming to understand specific elements of cultural values and practices in the acculturation process related to mental health outcomes among immigrant Korean American caregivers.

History of Bonaparte’s Egyptian Campaign in Modern Historiography

In this article, the author presents a comprehensive analysis of the most recent foreign publications on the history of Napoleon Bonaparte’s Egyptian campaign, published over the past five years. He begins by providing a concise overview of the historiography of this topic, outlining the key areas of development over the past decades and identifying the works that have become classics in each field. Furthermore, he highlights the increasing prominence of anti-colonial discourse, largely influenced by the concepts articulated in Edward Said’s seminal work, Orientalism, within the historiography of the Egyptian campaign since the early twenty-first century. The classic representation of these concepts in the historiography of this topic is a monograph by the American orientalist J. Cole. The impact of this discourse on the content of recent works is evident, particularly in the selection of topics by their authors. Consequently, the French military historian A. Pigeard was compelled to disguise his somewhat unconventional interest in the military aspects of the Egyptian campaign by discussing scientific topics that were not characteristic of his previous works. The Irish historian J. Clarke selected the topic of war crimes perpetrated by the French against the Egyptians for his research. Furthermore, the most significant works related to the history of the expedition that have appeared over the past period — the monograph of the English historian T. Sarafatti — can be characterised by the author’s desire to refute Said about the motivation of the French Orientalists who created the Description of Egypt. Concurrently, a notable recent trend in the historiography of the Egyptian campaign has been the inclusion of brief excursions into this topic by specialists from related fields of historical science. While this does contribute to a certain revival, it does not facilitate the emergence of fundamental research comparable in depth to the classical works of previous years.

Guerilla Women And Men In Silk Dresses: Diplomacy and Orientalism during the 1860 Japanese Mission

Abstract: In the summer of 1860, seventy-seven samurai conducted a month-long tour of Eastern Seaboard cities during a diplomatic mission to advance the fledgling US–Japan relations. The delegation became an instant sensation. News coverage of the visit revolved around a few motifs: feminized representations of the Japanese diplomats; white women's enthusiastic receptions; and castigations of white women's autonomous participation in formal and informal diplomatic arenas. This article interprets the press's feminizing discourse as an instantiation of American orientalism and argues that diplomacy, due to its inherent and historically specific workings, undercut and subverted the press's feminization of Japanese men and devaluation of white women's political capacity and that white women's interracial sexual desire was imagined in such a way that disconnected the organization of sexuality from a rigid male–female gender binary.

THE OTHER MOROCCO: HOW AMERICA PERCEIVES THE ORIENT

This paper examines the portrayal of Morocco in American culture throughout different historical periods. Its main objective is to provide a critical analysis of cultural encounters, particularly focusing on how the American perspective shapes the representation of Morocco as the “Other.” The aim of this paper is not only to highlight the various textual and visual depictions influenced by Orientalist discourse used to represent the country and its people, but also to explore America's historical involvement in the narrative of Orientalism. The examination of American and Western perceptions of Morocco leads to a discussion on Edward Said’s Orientalism, reconsidering some of its theoretical limitations. Specifically, Said's neglect of American Orientalist knowledge systems and the oversight of American fair exhibits in shaping popular Victorian perceptions of the Orient. The paper also addresses Orientalism’s failure to critically engage with the agency of natives within an orientalized context and its limited exploration of how the Oriental Other, when displaced to the center, reacts and acts, as well as the implications of the Orient transitioning from the “Other” to the “Self” and from the margins to the center of the paradigm

سورۃ الفاتحہ میں اختلاف قراءات اور آرتھر جیفری کے افکار کا تنقیدی مطالعہ

The orientalists aim to prove that human-made changes occurred in the Qur’ān. To achieve this purpose, a group of orientalists made efforts to prove this claim relying on different shādhdh readings of the Qur’ān. Arthur Jeffery, an American orientalist, played a pivotal role in raising doubts about the text of the Qur’ān. He identified differences in readings of the Qur’ān with the help of Islamic books related to the subject. He explored collectively different readings of the Qur’ān in his book Materials for the History of the Text of the Qur’ān, in which he argued that during the era of the Companions, many Companions possessed their codecs with different readings and words. Furthermore, he complied Muqaddimah fī ‘Ulūm al-Qur’ān based on the following two old manuscripts: Muqaddimat Kitāb al-Mabānī and Muqaddimat Ibn ‘Aṭṭiyyah. He opines that differences in the Qur’ānic readings are not correct and that getting to the original text is not only difficult but also impossible. He made Sūrat al-Fātiḥah a point of departure for his research because this sūrah is the preface of the Qur’ān and is shorter in terms of words. Arthur Jeffery raised doubts and suspicion about the differences in the readings of Sūrat al-Fātiḥah. This article studies the views of Arthur Jeffery about the differences in the readings of Sūrat al-Fātiḥah.

Эволюционный путь внешней политики современной Венгрии

Introduction. The foreign policy of modern Hungary has passed through several stages of development since the fall of socialism. The purpose of this article is to clarify the qualitative characteristics of the points of evolution that have determined the content of Hungarian foreign policy. Today, it is not enough to define the image of Hungarian foreign policy solely in terms of pan-European or North Atlantic solidarity. A more careful and thoughtful study of the dynamics of the foreign policy doctrine of Budapest is required. Methods and Materials. Our main task is to clarify the periodization of the process of Hungary’s foreign policy development. The proposed periodization is carried out in a complex manner, based on several reasons and correlating their influence on each of the allocated time periods. The information array was composed of news for April 2010 – August 2022, based on a digest of news from Hungarian news agencies. Analysis. The author identifies five main periods in the development of Hungary’s foreign policy: the transitional period; the imperative period; the period of Euro-Atlantic romanticism; the period of seeking regional balance; and the period of Euroscepticism and Easternization. Each of these periods is characterized by an assessment of the conceptual content of international politics, the continuity of the foreign policy course, and the change in emphasis of the current policy. Results. Obviously, the current period of development is nearing its end, and in the medium term, Hungarian foreign policy itself will take the form of several relatively balanced concentric circles in the process of forming a polycentric world. At the same time, the European and American orientations will continue to be of paramount importance for Hungary. The growing inertia of the decline in the intensity of Russian-Hungarian relations seems to be the main characteristic of the interaction between the two countries.

American orientalism: A critical reading through Edgar Allan Poe

To date, The Arabian Nights still create frames of reference outside its fictive core. The article critically examined the adaptations and appropriation of the classic Arabian Nights by Edgar Allan Poe and how he invested his interest in the Orient to advance his career as a writer. More specifically, the aim was to study the links between European Orientalism and the new version of the Orient constructed in the United States. Various modes of reading and approaches were used to critically interpret the primary texts. Orientalism and postcolonial theories provided a theoretical framework for the study, and the deconstructive approach was applied in certain contexts to deconstruct and dismantle the stereotyping and mythologizing of the Orient. The article contributed to the growing scholarship on American oriental discourse by offering a counter perspective. Poe’s poems and short stories all perpetuate negative oriental representations. His obsession with the Orient is not reflected as aesthetic appreciation but it is rather appropriation that distorts and never restores. Poe’s oriental discourse is only examined lately by Arab critics of American literature and more specifically it surfaced through translations of his works into Arabic. Through stereotypical duplication in the world of realism, a fake Orient has become there in the world of reality.

The Efforts of Suzanne Stetkevych in the Study of Arabic Poetry: The Poetry of Abū al-‛Alā al-Ma‛arrī as a Model

This essay examines the efforts of the American orientalist Suzanne Pinckney Stetkevych in her studies of the poetry of Abū al-‛Alā al-Ma‛arrī, which occupies a sizable space of her research interests. Stetkevych’s efforts in studying Arabic poetry are outstanding revealed by the copious research she has attracted. The present essay reviews the most prominent literature and critical reception of Stetkevych regarding her study of al-Ma‛arrī, analyzing the contents and methodologies used by researchers regarding her studies of Arabic poetry. The essay highlights the epistemological and theoretical references she has employed while studying Al-Ma‛arrī. It also connects those references with the broad pedagogical and procedural tools she has utilized while studying Arabic classic poetry in general. It is essential to emphasize that Stetkevych has enriched orientalist literature with remarkable critical contributions that are still worthy of consideration, review, and research.

SAMUEL JOHNSON'S THOUGHTS ABOUT ISLAM

This review essay is about a late nineteenth-century book on Islam written by an American Orientalist Samuel Johnson (1822-1882). Johnson was a clergyman, a consecrated minister, a scholar of large attainments, an author, and by nature a poet. More especially, he was a student and interpreter of the Far Eastern religions. Whatever his work, he brought into it an open, cultivated, and philosophic mind. The most enduring monument to Johnson’s labour is his scholarly and philosophical study of the Oriental Religions: India (1872); China (1877); and Persia (1885). This study engaged him during his whole ministry and to the end of his life.

“Gangsta Chi”

This article sheds light on the pervasive yet largely uncommented upon presence of geek culture and Orientalism in hip hop, revealing the constructed, performed, and mediated nature of racialized masculinity in popular culture. By observing a range of media artifacts but concentrating on RZA’s memoir The Tao of the Wu (2009), this article contends that geeky hip hop Orientalism performs a strategy of style codeswitching, wherein the combination of intellectualism and the fantasized East expand the repertoire of Black masculinity and fantastical worldmaking. Heavy in Orientalist themes that mirror the hyper intellectualism associated with geekiness, The Tao of the Wu evinces the strong bond between geek culture and early hip hop music. Specifically, this article focuses on RZA’s mental cultivation over physicality and his enchantment by children’s media culture (comics, anime, and kung fu cinema). Merging hip hop and geek culture, which conventionally appear to exist on opposite poles, results in new interracial paradigms of geek and hip hop representations. Hip hop geekiness largely detours from an otherwise presumed whiteness in routing itself along a storied legacy of African American Orientalism. In this way, geeky hip hop Orientalism contributes to more queered and quotidian versions of Afro Asian aesthetics, politics, and interracial fantasy worlds. A deep consideration of the bonds among hip hop, geekiness, and Orientalism helps to reimagine the embodiments and performances of racialized masculinity, which, though complex and limited, can gesture towards the freedoms promised in a more expansive spectrum of gender and sexual affinities and identities.

CONSTRUCTIONS OF NORTH AFRICAN CORSAIRS IN EARLY AND POST-9/11 AMERICAN ORIENTALIST DISCOURSE

The capture and enslavement of American sailors at the hands of North African corsairs, notoriously known as Barbary pirates, on the Mediterranean coasts in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, coupled with the so-called Barbary Wars between the newly-independent United States and the-then branded the Barbary States of North Africa, gave rise to the “the first significant group of U.S. Orientalist works” (Schueller 45). Following the tragic events of September 11 and the ensuing “War on Terror”, many of the negative images perpetuated in these early American Orientalist writings have been revived in post-9/11 American historiography and media accounts of Barbary Wars which both advocate that the late eighteenth and early nineteenth-century North African corsairs were the first “Islamic terrorists” whom the United States had ever faced. Scholarship on early American Orientalism has demonstrated how representations of the early North African ‘Mahometan’ as despotic, antichristian, and decadent were employed to shape American national identity. Yet, little, if no, scholarly attention has been paid to how both early and post-9/11 American writings on Barbary North Africa have invested in stereotypical depictions of barbarism, savagery, monstrosity, cannibalism, demonization, and, more recently, terrorism and Jihadism to create the misguided and mistaken cultural assumption that monstrosity and violence are inherent qualities of Muslims and Arabs. In tracing and identifying these misassumptions, this article endeavors to prove that the stereotyping of Muslims and Arabs was has been a prevalent phenomenon in American culture. It, too, seeks to unveil how Americans, both in early America and the post-9/11 era, have tried, through narrative, to appropriate and construct and reconstruct the North African ‘Mahometans’, and Muslims and Arabs in general, as the inhumane monster and the arch-enemy who should be fought wherever s/he is found.<p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0594/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>

The status of oriental women in the eyes of the American orientalist will durant in his book (The Story of Civilization)

Praise be to God, Lord of the Worlds, and prayers and peace be upon the Seal of the Prophets and Messengers, Abu al-Qasim Muhammad, and upon his family and his pure and good companions, and after: Addressing the issue of oriental women in oriental studies and trying to seek correct information about the life of women in the east is a topic of importance, because it is one of the most popular studies on orientalists, in addition to the importance of the same role that women play in the family and oriental society, and as a result of the contents of the orientalist vision From different, disparate and sometimes biased information about women in the East, so it is necessary to look at those studies to get to the real information, and to try to correct the misunderstanding about the situation of women in the East and their position in ancient societies, and their position between ancient and heavenly religions.

The Day the World Stopped Working

The Day the World Stopped Working

Paradigm of Islamic sociology

This research shows that the first school of sociology during several centuries of the evolution of social thought has finally been introduced to human society as a product of Islamic civilization. The root of Islamic sociology is the comprehensive and profound teachings of the Qur'an on social issues. The Qur'an has made man, society, and history sources of knowledge and has invited to the science of anthropology and the knowledge of human societies and history. A verse from the Qur'an is considered a universal sociological manifesto that refers only to the concept of change and its interconnected human-divine mechanism in the individual and human societies. Since the seventeenth century, the Qur'an has been considered in Europe and American Orientalist scientific circles as a useful work in sociology. After the Qur'an, Ali's first teachings are theoretical materials of social analysis that have analyzed and explained man in terms of behaviour and social relations. Farabi, the founder of Islamic sociology, Farabi's theory of urban and citizenship theory, presented the first classical analysis and explanation of the individual and society. He is the mine of sociology for all ages and all nations. His work Thoughts on the Case of the Good City is a secular work describing the individual and society and depicting the changes of the individual and society. Ibn Khaldun's work is a complete example of a specialized school and school of Islamic sociology. The initiative of this founder of humanities is to talk about the social phenomenon in the language of formula, which is mentioned in this article for the first time as Ibn Khaldun coefficient. Ibn khaldun founded the school of classical sociology at the end of the middle Ages by presenting a formula for depicting the changing societies. He is the result of the evolution of sociology in Islamic civilization. And shows that the Qur'an is the main source of Ibn Khaldun's social thought and the basic concepts of sociology can be clearly traced and scientifically categorized through the study of the Qur'an and is useful in the sociological analysis of the problems of contemporary societies.

Oiko-Poetics versus Andro-Poetics: An Account of the Deep-Ecological Perspective of Ice Age in Contrast to the Naturalistic Perspective of Exploration Age

This article provides an interpretation of the two worldviews of nature. The first one is the Euro-American orientation, which is naturalistic in its outlook towards the environment. This outlook provides the roots for Andro-Poetic epistemology; which is inclusive and exploitative in its ontology.The second one is the Native American orientation, which is bio-centric in its outlook on the environment. This outlook nourishes the ideology of deep ecology and provides the perspective of Oiko-Poetics; which has inclusive epistemology and a collective environmental ontology. Hence, this article reflects to provide a comparative analytical and critical approach to scrutinize the two selected fictions side by side. Which proves that the Native American Approach is inclusive towards the nature in comparison to the Euro-American approach which is exclusive towards the nature in its outlook.

ACLS and the Promotion of Chinese Studies in the United States, 1928–1958


 
 
 This essay recounts the early history of the development of Chinese studies in the United States undertaken by the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS), starting in 1928 under the leadership of its newly appointed Assistant Secretary, Mortimer Graves, in collaboration with key members of the American Oriental Society. Through planning conferences, surveys, and reports, he ascertained the needs of the field and secured funding to meet them. These included seed money for faculty positions, fellowships for graduate students and scholars, programs to spark interest in Asian studies curricula, the creation of bibliographical and journal resources and a new scholarly society, and the development of intensive language training methods. Subsequent philanthropic and government support continued this trajectory, but Graves’s thirty-year campaign succeeded in laying the foundation for the field as we know it today.