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Oriental Enlightenment: The Encounter between Asia and Western Thought For those of us who teach and study world religions, the notion that much of how we have been taught to look at religion in general and central cherished conceptions of Asian religions in particular is, in effect, the careful packaging or a construction of religion that often has very little to do with the historical and contemporary practice of the tradition. The groundbreaking work that first brought this awareness to the attention of scholars and teachers was Edward Said's Orientalism (1978). This work was devoted to looking at how the west had constructed a very specific picture of Islam and the Middle East that was based on colonialism and imperialism, and not on some vague objective truth. In the two decades since the publication of Orientalism a new generation of scholars has looked at this "orientalist" construction in terms of China and India. More particularly, religious studies scholars have looked at it in terms of Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism. Much of that work within individual traditions has been summarized and added to in J.J. Clarke's Oriental Enlightenment. The book is divided into four sections that include an introduction to basic concepts, the "Making of the Orient," "Orientalism in the twentieth century," and considerations of reorientation and postmodernity. The addition of a twenty page (small print) bibliography for further reading and index makes this book an excellent source and a good start for both teachers and students who want to delve into this richly rewarding area of study. Clarke begins by asking us to question the source and validity of such concepts as "Asia", "Orient," "East," and "West." As the author so eloquently says, "Much of the West's perception of the East may have been clouded by fantasy and wishful thinking; as we shall see, the representations of the East by the Western thinkers often tell us more about the minds of the latter than the former (6)." Not only have we been presented in classrooms and now pass on to another generation of students someone's fantasy, but the most basic terms that we use are highly problematic. "Crucial terms like such as 'East', 'Orient', and 'West', become devices for reducing endless complexities and diversities into manageable and falsifying unities, a semantic artifice which has encouraged us to think in terms of the contrasting of East and West in some eternal transcendent opposition (10)." In the following chapters of the book's first section he conjectures the roots and cause of Orientalism. He describes these allures as a combination of romanticism, irrationalism, curiosity, colonial domination, a corrective mirror to European cultural upheaval, and a growing nihilism. The second section of the book looks at the European reaction to and study of China, India, and Buddhism. In each of these cultural spheres Clarke examines how Europeans through an equally distorted lense of fantasy and contempt built a picture and a scholarship lineage whose spell we are only just awakening from. The narratives here read like a great detective novel of hows and whys that readers will find fascinating and compelling. Clarke turns his attention in the third section to the twentieth century and encounters with philosophy, religion, psychology, and scientific and ecological speculations. The net result for us is to see how deeply distributed the problems of Orientalism are. Here he speaks to issues that teachers encounter every day in the classroom, pluralism, and representations of lived diversity that preclude any essentialist constructions of religion or culture. As we move into an America that is truly becoming more and more religiously diverse, we owe it to ourselves and to our students to become aware the deeply significant issues that J. J.Clarke raises in "Oriental Enlightenment." Review © 1999 Tom Collins and RSiSS Return to Studying and Teaching About Religion |