Essay on Exoticism: An Aesthetics of DiversityThe “Other”—source of fear and fascination; emblem of difference demonized and romanticized. Theories of alterity and cultural diversity abound in the contemporary academic landscape. Victor Segalen’s early attempt to theorize the exotic is a crucial reference point for all discussions of alterity, diversity, and ethnicity. Written over the course of fourteen years between 1904 and 1918, at the height of the age of imperialism, Essay on Exoticism encompasses Segalen’s attempts to define “true Exoticism.” This concept, he hoped, would not only replace nineteenth-century notions of exoticism that he considered tawdry and romantic, but also redirect his contemporaries’ propensity to reduce the exotic to the “colonial.” His critique envisions a mechanism that appreciates cultural difference—which it posits as an aesthetic and ontological value—rather than assimilating it: “Exoticism’s power is nothing other than the ability to conceive otherwise,” he writes. Segalen’s pioneering work on otherness anticipates and informs much of the current postcolonial critique of colonial discourse. As such Essay on Exoticism is essential reading for both cultural theorists or those with an interest in the politics of difference and diversity. |
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Aesthetics of Diversity already beautiful Boissière Bovarysm called centaur China Chinese cism Claudel Clouard colonial conceive contemporary Créolité criticism cultural Debussy decline desire difference Edouard Glissant elsewhere ence entry Essai sur l'exotisme Essay on Exoticism essential Exoticism everything existence exotic Exoticism of Nature exoticist flavor French Edition Gauguin Hearn human ideas Immémoriaux January Joris-Karl Huysmans Jules de Gaultier Lafcadio Hearn literary literature Loti Maeterlink Maori Maurice de Guérin Mercure de France mystery native notion novel novelist object one's Paris Patrick Chamoiseau Paul Claudel Paul Gauguin Peintures perhaps Pierre Pierre Mille poet prose poems Provençal pseudonym published Quinton quotations races René Leys Saint-Pol Saint-Pol Roux Segalen refers sensation of Exoticism sense short story space stele Stèles Tahiti Tanizaki things thought Tientsin tion tourists trans translation tropics University Press Victor Segalen vision word exoticism writing Xipéhuz