Introduction

Summary

“ORIENTALISM AS SELF-CRITIQUE”: the juxtaposition of these terms warrants immediate explanation. In his groundbreaking study Orientalism (1978) Edward Said at once defines and denounces orientalism as a hegemonic discourse, “a Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient.” As the ideological cohort to occidental imperialism, orientalism as described by Said appears to be exclusively concerned with European self-aggrandizement rather than self-critique, invariably casting the Orient as the feeble Other dominated by the mighty West (40). However, in recent years, some postcolonial critics have argued against such a monolithic interpretation. Indeed, for Ziauddin Sardar, Said's elision of diversity and heterogeneity within the discourse “amounts to Occidentalism, stereotyping in reverse”, since it “ignores all manifestations of counter-hegemonic thought” and creates the illusion of a unified and constant European/Western identity. Other critics, such as Lisa Lowe, have also argued for a conception of orientalism as “heterogeneous and contradictory,” a pluralist discourse that can even encompass critical representations of the West. My purpose here is to advance this line of enquiry by addressing the orientalist fiction produced by a European empire that receives no mention in Orientalism: Austria-Hungary. Through close analysis of works by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Robert Musil, and Franz Kafka, I seek to demonstrate that far from promulgating Western imperialism, these texts subvert received notions of national and cultural identity and thus problematize the very practice of orientalism. Moreover, my readings of these fictions show how all three authors adopt politically or culturally self-critical stances, invoking the oriental “Other” not to bolster Occidental imperialism but rather to express concerns about their own troubled empire.