"Heterotopias" In Geographical Orient

"Imaginative geography"is a term in Orientalism in 1978 proposed by Edward Said who attempted to apply some geography concepts and metaphors to his studies, such as"territory","space","region"and"landscape", bringing the Oriental studies into a specific space within imagination. Said put forward his view on space, time and identity, and brought the concept of space back into the framework of his postcolonial theory, trying to apply the space theory to Orientalism. This essay is intended to take Said's Orientalism as a studying text, trying to build an intertextual bridge of interpretation between culture and geography, both from a geographical point of view to study culture, and from the perspective of culture to study geography. Meanwhile, supported by Culture and Imperialism, Said made his re-thinking on the relationship of space, time and identity. It is the particular level to question how the culture to give space the meaning, and to examine Said's Oriental identity from the perspective of culture and geography by imagination, which can further find that the theoretical implications of Said's geography shift actually came from Foucault but create a new academic field. In a certain sense, Said's imaginative geography studies rely on the basis of Foucault's theory, opening out a field for culturls criticism, which can help to fill the gap among domestic studies on Said and post colonization, and to understand and resolve some social problems among ethnic, national minority, marginalized group and dominant society.The part of Introduction consists of four hands: the domestic studies on Said and his Orientalism, the necessity and the innovativeness of imaginative geography studies, the brief introduction to research methods and relative theories, and the academic values. Chapter One focuses on"space", which will combine with Michel Foucault's view on space, trying to question how Said's Orient is endowed with the spatial meanings and how the space can be Orietalized. Thereby, it can open up the connotation of space in Said's imaginative geography and the adherence to Foucault's theory on"heterotopias". Chapter Two focuses on"time", which will combines with the text of Orientalism to discuss how Said applied the notion of"time"to the construction of"imaginative geography"and how he absorbed Foucault's thoughts to make the"heterotopia"time into the Oriental space, in terms of past, present and future. Chapter Three focuses on"identity", which will try to interpret the dialectic relationship among space, time and identity by the construction of"other"and"self", to enrich the theoretical connotation of"imaginative geography". The part of Conclusion will point out the academic significance, deficiency of study in this essay and difficulties and questions during research. The signification is made: I really hope I could do something helpful to fill the gap of the domestic study on Said and postcolonial studies.