JOMOPS JOURNAL OF MODERNISM AND POSTMODERNISM STUDIES Submitted: 05.03.2022 - Accepted: 30.06.2022 Year: July 2022 - Volume: 3 - Issue: 1 DOI: 10.47333/modernizm.2022.69 RESEARCH ARTICLE 143 REPRESENTATION OF THE OTHER IN WESTERN HISTORY: A POSTCOLONIAL READING 1 Rasha MALEK 2 Abstract Much of the European discourse on the Other has been informed by canonical figures like Kant, Hegel, and Freud, who have misrepresented the non-European non-white with special emphasis on women who were believed to be generally inferior to men.This has urged postmodern and postcolonial writers like Gayatri Spivak, Edward Said, Franz Fanon, and Luce Irigaray to counter those writers in order to rewrite the history and identity of women and the non- European. This paper traces the history of ideas regarding the representation of the Other and offers a postcolonial critique of theories advanced by Kant, Hegel, and Freud. Kant represented the Other as lacking judgment faculties whose taste and moral judgment cannot be compared to the wise European. Hegel excluded the Other from history and alleged that the only history is European since he believes that the Other is incapable of writing history. Finally, Freud portrayed the Other as savage and primitive whose mind resembles his neurotic patients. He also represented women’s sexuality as inferior to men. Such misrepresentations have resulted in a long history of dehumanization and prejudices towards the Other. This has triggered the emergence of the postcolonial discourse in order to balance the Othering process. For instance, Spivak attacked Kant for disempowering and excluding the non-Europeans from his Critique of Judgment.She also critiqued Hegel for creating Oriental stereotypes in his Philosophy of History. Hegel’s master/slave dialectic has been deconstructed by Franz Fanon, who argues that the black cannot attain self-recognition through the gaze of the white, since the black has always been portrayed as inferior in the white’s discourse. Irigaray challenged Freud by arguing that he lacks an understanding of female sexuality. Edward Said contradicted Freud’s ambivalent notion of the non- European. Such revisionist history aims at rewriting the Other’s image and identity. Keywords: The Other, Postmodernism, Postcolonialism, Hegel, Kant, Freud, Representation, Feminism INTRODUCTION The postmodern current (1970s) has brought about several ideological changes where skepticism has become the source of meaning. Critics and thinkers like Jean- François Lyotard, Jacques Derrida, and Michel Foucault urge the postmodern reader to discredit the dominant narrative and question the capital truth in favor of the marginalized narrative that has always been silenced by canonical voices. This inciting call has triggered the emergence of feminist and postcolonial discourse where critics like Gayatri Spivak, Luce Irigaray, Edward Said, and Frantz Fanon challenge and question the representation 1 The article is part of a dissertation chapter, published in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the doctoral program at Cairo University, under the supervision of Professor Shereen Abouelnaga, Professor of English and Comparative Literature. 2 PhD Candidate, Cairo University, Faculty of Arts, Department of English Language and Literature, rashamal@aucegypt.edu, ORCID: 0000-0001-5885-2167