A necessidade e a validade dos Estudos Orientais, hoje

Abstract

This paper stresses the urgent necessity of creating institutional structures that would allow a fast development of Oriental Studies in Portugal. In a country belonging to the Mediterranean civilization and marked by centuries of Islamic presence, it is paradoxical that the Portuguese scholars have not devoted to this important part of their cultural heritage all the attention it deserves. The causes accounting for the slow progress of Oriental Studies are various: on the one hand, this discipline did not keep pace with the rapid evolution of social science; on the other hand, it broke away from traditional Orientalism (prone to decontextualisation, fundamentalism, elitism, extrapolation, its methodological models being both the botanical sciences and romantic literacy criticism) without replacing it. Fortunately, things have changed, and postmodernism gave rise to a new Orientalism, focusing on concrete aspects of Eastern societies, on their trends of opinion and aspirations. One can hope that, once liberated from their “atlanticism”, Portuguese researchers will be able to develop a better understanding of the social transformations taking place in the East.