Essay Prompt (this must be completed for the order):
In chapter 1 of Orientalism, Said introduces the concept of “imaginative geography.” How does Said describe “imaginative geography,” and how is it relevant to his broader arguments in Orientalism? What might Said mean when he suggests that geography (and geographical distinctions) is to a degree socially and historically constructed?
Provide at least one example from Orientalism and one example from our other readings of “imaginative geography.” Additionally, provide one example from your own lives or recent political/world events of how the ways in which geography is imagined can have cultural or political consequences.
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Your essay should be 6-8 pages (1500-2000 words), and must make use of a minimum of two readings from the syllabus. All quotations should be cited with appropriate page numbers, and paraphrases of arguments from the readings should likewise be cited. Your essays should be structured with a short introductory paragraph outlining the argument you will make in the essay and how you understand the essay prompt. There are no requirements for how many paragraphs the essay should be broken up into, but you want each paragraph to develop your arguments, building to a concluding paragraph where your main arguments throughout the paper are briefly and clearly summarized.
Make sure that your claims are grounded in concrete evidence and references from the readings, and avoid overly broad/general claims that are imprecise or cannot be defended with specific evidence. Keep your claims precise, specific, and manageable.
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Readings from the syllabus:
1. Edward W. Said. Orientalism. London: Penguin Classics. 2003 [1978].
2. Orhan Pamuk. Snow. Trans. Maureen Freely. New York: Vintage Books. 2005. Edward W. Said. Orientalism. London: Penguin Classics. 2003 [1978].
3. Part 1, Stuart Hall. “The West and the Rest: Discourse and Power.” In, Formations of Modernity Eds. Stuart Hall & Bram Gieben. Cambridge, U.K.: Polity Press. 1995 [1992].
4. Part 2, Stuart Hall. “The West and the Rest: Discourse and Power.” In, Formations of Modernity Eds. Stuart Hall & Bram Gieben. Cambridge, U.K.: Polity Press. 1995 [1992].
5. Joanne P. Sharp. “Introduction” and “Chapter 1.” In, Geographies of Postcolonialism: Spaces of Power and Representation. London: Sage. 2009.
6. Kwame Anthony Appiah. The Reith Lectures. BBC Radio 4. 2016 (58 minutes). Available here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b081lkkj. (Lecture transcript here: https://downloads.bbc.co.uk/radio4/transcripts/2016_reith4_Appiah_Mistaken_Identities_Culture.pdfLinks to an external site.)
7. Adam Shatz. “Palestinianism.” LRB (https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v43/n09/adam-shatz/palestinianismLinks to an external site.)
8. Esma Elhalaby. “The World of Edward Said.” Boston Review. (https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/the-world-of-edward-said/Links to an external site.)
9. Edward W. Said. “Representing the Colonized: Anthropology’s Interlocutors.” Critical Inquiry 15.2 (1989), pp. 205-225.Edward W. Said.
10. Yael Navaro. Faces of the State: Secularism and Public Life in Turkey. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Introduction & Chapter 2 (“The Place of Turkey: Contested Regionalism in an Ambiguous Area.”) (Available as ebook on Oskicat)
11. Coronil, Fernando. “Beyond Occidentalism: Toward Nonimperial Geohistorical Categories.” Cultural Anthropology 11.1 (1996), 51-87. (https://www.jstor.org/stable/656209)
The readings highlighted in bold are the best ones to be included in the essay.