RICERCA ITALIANA     

Cities of the Orient from antiquity to the present day: thought, culture, society

Università "Ca' Foscari" di Venezia

Abstract

This research program is concerned with the concept of ‘oriental city,' i. e. those urban agglomerations that have always been perceived as belonging to the ‘Orient'. Edward Said (See, Said, Edward W. Orientalism. 1st ed. New York: Pantheon Books, 1978) has shown that cultural-geographical entities such as the ‘Orient' are not inert facts of nature but rather should be grasped as historically specific discursive constructions having a particular history and tradition. Thus, the ‘Orient' has been constituted by imagery and vocabulary giving it a determined reality and presence within Western culture. The research project deconstructs the image of the ‘oriental city' offered by Western culture, while concentrating on the reality of some Asian and Egyptian urban centers seen through historical, artistic, literary, and linguistic evidence.
The final goal of the research project is to bring to light as many elements as possible that have, over the centuries, contributed to the development of the concept of the "oriental city," pointing out in each case the differences between the historical reality and the orientalizing vision.

Principal Investigator

Gian Carlo CALZA Università "Cà Foscari" di VENEZIA

Research Objectives

This reaserch program is concerned with the concept of ‘oriental city,' i. e. those urban agglomerations that have always been perceived as belonging to the ‘Orient'. The research project deconstructs the image of the ‘oriental city' offered by Western culture, while concentrating on the reality of some Asian and Egyptian urban centers seen through historical, artistic, literary, and linguistic evidence. In order to analyze this topic, the Research Units will investigate three main areas: 1) literary and historical sources; 2) the visual arts; 3) linguistic phenomena.
The short-term objective of the project is to evaluate and to analyze the development of the great urban centers in the geographical areas under consideration from antiquity to the present day through an identification of those elements contributing to a thorough understanding of the changes in the thought, culture and society of each area. Archeological and iconographical sources relating to the urban centers under examination will therefore be catalogued and literary texts relating to this question will be collected. In the first year of the project, the initial results will be published on web pages with easily downloaded texts. (The web sites are already in operation and have the address: http://www.sslmit.units.it/crevatin/franco_crevatin_homepage.htm and http://venus.unive.it/dsao) They will also be published in the scholarly journal Asiatica Venetiana >>>

Timescale

24 months

National and international background

Edward Said has shown that cultural-geographical entities such as the ‘Orient' are not inert facts of nature but rather should be grasped as historically specific discursive constructions having a particular history and tradition. Thus, the ‘Orient' has been constituted by imagery and vocabulary giving it a determined reality and presence within Western culture. This reaserch program is concerned with the concept of ‘oriental city,' i. e. those urban agglomerations that have always been preceived as belonging to the ‘Orient'. The research project deconstructs the image of the ‘oriental city' offered by Western culture, while concentrating on the reality of some Asian and Egyptian urban centers seen through historical, artistic, literary, and linguistic evidence.
Through the changes linked to the urban development of Hetu Ala, the first capital of the arising Manchu empire, and its transformation from a simple jurchen "tribal residence" (first years of the XVIIth century) till its present shape as an "open-air-museum", it becomes possible to analyze the recent architectonic reconstruction "in Chinese stile" of Hetu Ala, which is based on wrong historical guidelines, but has been carried out in order to create a tourist attraction connected with the economical development of this area.
From the image of Beijing in the Chinese literature of the last decades, the great changes that have been taking place in Chinese society since the foundation of the People's >>>