Alessandro Vanoli. THE DISCOVERY OF THE EAST

What is the ‘East’ really? Not a geographical place, but an idea constructed over time by the Western imagination. In this lesson, we shall retrace the stages of this cultural invention, to discover how the gaze upon the ‘other’ always reveals much more about the observer than about that which is observed.

What exactly is the Orient? Not a geographical location, but an idea constructed over time by the Western imagination. In this lesson, we shall trace the stages of this cultural invention: from medieval travellers to Romantic notions, right up to contemporary stereotypes. To discover how our view of the ‘other’ always reveals much more about the observer than about what is being observed.