“Ich, die Dichterin von Arabien”: Else Lasker-Schüler’s Orientalism as an Ennoblement of Jewishness.

In early twentieth-century Germany, Orientalist imagery and stereotypes provided an important and successful repertoire for the entertainment industries. Cruel colonial practices such as ethnological exhibitions appeared side by side with dreamy art and narratives in the style of the Arabian Nights. Meanwhile, antisemitism was on the rise, particularly following Germany’s defeat in World War I. In the same decades, a certain taste for Jewish mysticism, namely the Kabbalah, appeared, along with the rise of esotericism and vitalism. This article considers Else Lasker-Schüler, a German-Jewish multimedia artist whose works comprise poems and prose as well as graphically elaborate letters, arabesque drawings, and performances in Orientalist settings within this historical context. Inspired by the surrounding Orientalist entertainment industry, Lasker-Schüler’s imageries and story worlds prove exceptional among German Orientalist initiatives because of the way she claims them for herself. Using the logic of mystification, alienation, and commercialization, Lasker-Schüler creates a certain image of herself as artist that allows her to become the other not only in terms of content but also through formal expressions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]