As Said demonstrates, there is a vast discursive archive of writing on and images of the Orient for the specialist academic or political interest as well as the popular imagination (and its commercial handmaiden) to draw upon. Diverging from his broad Foucauldian framework, Said (1978, 23) notes determining imprint of ‘the individual writers upon the otherwise anonymous collective body of texts constituting a discursive formation like He argues that the discourse acted as a Orientalism’. framework wherein authors, popular as well as academic, drew upon one another as use was an imperative for anyone writing or thinking about the authorities ‘whose Moreover, Said (ibid, 224) specifically singles out non-academics like Burton Orient’. and Bell as being of particular importance as travellers who did not simply represent the East from afar but developed praxes for effective access to, movement within and management of Oriental difference Burton, alongside other traveller-writers in in-situ. the East was a resource drawn upon and by Bell in later years. These added to accounts, in turn, were disseminated and enjoyed popular reception in Britain and other Western countries alongside similar accounts. So, while the selection of the diaries of Burton and Bell does not indicate their status as forerunners of singular contemporary expectation of the Islamic East we argue that their importance lies in their particular historical situatedness as works that, respectively, offered up and drew upon a textually East at key moments of Western encroachment on the ‘managed’ Islamic Orient. Their importance therefore, is as key points of punctuation in the solidification of a popularly received discourse that has assembled and temporally flattened moments of Orientalist discourse. Said (1978, 157) subdivides travel writers into three intentional categories. These are:
As Said demonstrates, there is a vast discursive archive of writing on and images of the Orient for the specialist academic or political interest as well as the popular imagination (and its commercial handmaiden) to draw upon. Diverging from his broad Foucauldian framework, Said (1978, 23) notes ‘the determining imprint of individual writers upon the otherwise anonymous collective body of texts constituting a discursive formation like Orientalism’. He argues that the discourse acted as a framework wherein authors, popular as well as academic, drew upon one another as authorities ‘whose use was an imperative for anyone writing or thinking about the Orient’. Moreover, Said (ibid, 224) specifically singles out non-academics like Burton and Bell as being of particular importance as travellers who did not simply represent the East from afar but developed praxes for effective access to, movement within and management of Oriental difference in-situ. Burton, alongside other traveller-writers in the East was a resource drawn upon and added to by Bell in later years. These accounts, in turn, were disseminated and enjoyed popular reception in Britain and other Western countries alongside similar accounts. So, while the selection of the diaries of Burton and Bell does not indicate their singular status as forerunners of contemporary expectation of the Islamic East we argue that their importance lies in their particular historical situatedness as works that, respectively, offered up and drew upon a textually ‘managed’ East at key moments of Western encroachment on the Islamic Orient. Their importance therefore, is as key points of punctuation in the solidification of a popularly received discourse that has assembled and temporally flattened moments of Orientalist discourse. Said (1978, 157) subdivides travel writers into three intentional categories. These are:
Historicising_Hospitality_R2.docx