Imaginierte Geographien

Abstract

Reanalyzing the work of Eward Said the essay illuminates the complexity and fractured formation of Orientalism as a constellation of power, knowledge and geography. In doing so the author reconstructs Said's geographical imagination and its groundings in both a specific intellectual biography and the current situation in Palestine. In a second step Gramsci and Foucault are invoked, in order to emphasize the importance of spatial sensivity for Said's work. In a close analysis of the Description de l'gypt and the Cairo premiere of Verdi's opera Aida the author reworks Said's main theme, in order to reinforce the physicality and materiality of his argument.