Exoticism & Orientalism

HAA 271X Subject & Catalog Number

Description

The course explores cultural and artistic engagement with the trope of the “other” in 18^th- and 19^th-century France, Britain, and elsewhere. Paintings, prints, travel and costume books, architecture, and design will be discussed in broader social and cultural contexts. While considering different interpretive paradigms, we’ll focus on the most recent approaches that depart from fixed binary oppositions and monolithic treatment of the “Orient” versus the “Occident.” Emphasis will be placed on the distinction between the 18^th- and the 19^th-century modes of engagement with foreignness and cultural difference. Among the issues discussed are: the relation between art and colonialism, the politics and poetic of representation, curiosity, mediation, translation, cross-cultural practices, fashion, identity, sexuality, scale, visual geography, and space (including that of World Fairs).