S. P. Gabriel, B. Wilson (ed.). Orientalism and Reverse Orientalism in Literature and Film. Beyond East and West

Orientalism and Reverse Orientalism in Literature and Film
Beyond East and West

Sharmani Patricia Gabriel, Bernard Wilson (ed.)

ISBN 9780367615222

Routledge

234 Pages 

£120.00

PRESENTATION

Acknowledging the significance of Edward Said’s Orientalism for contemporary discourse, the contributors to this volume deconstruct, rearrange, and challenge elements of his thesis, looking at the new conditions and opportunities offered by globalization.

What can a renewed or reconceptualized Orientalism teach us about the force and limits of our racial imaginary, specifically in relation to various national contexts? In what ways, for example, considering our greater cross-cultural interaction, have clichés and stereotypes undergone a metamorphosis in contemporary societies and cultures? Theoretically, and empirically, this book offers an expansive range of contexts, comprising the insights, analytical positions, and perspectives of a transnational team of scholars of comparative literature and literary and cultural studies based in Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, USA, Singapore, Taiwan, and Turkey. Working with, through and beyond Orientalism, they examine a variety of cultural texts, including the novel, short story, poetry, film, graphic memoir, social thought, and life writing. Making connections across centuries and continents, they articulate cultural representation and discourse through multiple approaches including critical content analysis, historical contextualization, postcolonial theory, gender theory, performativity, intertextuality, and intersectionality.

Given its unique approach, this book will be essential reading for scholars of literary theory, film studies and Asian studies, as well as for those with a general interest in postcolonial literature and film.

Table of Contents:

1. Introduction: Resisting Orientalism

Bernard Wilson and Sharmani Patricia Gabriel

Part I: (Neo)Imperial Desire and Re(pro)ductive Stereotypes

2. Masquerade, Mise-en-Scène and Female Harem Desire in Abdul the Damned (1935)

Julie F. Codell

3. Zen and the Art of Cultural Cliché: Three Cinematic Pilgrimages to Japan in the New Millennium

Bernard Wilson

4. "Putting it My Way, but Nicely": Neocolonialism in Feminist Clothing in Andy Tennant’s Anna and the King (1999) and Rodgers and Hammerstein’s The King and I (1956)

Lucian Țion

Part II: East-West Travel and Cultural Translation

5. Steinbeck’s East of Eden: Progenitor of Chinese American Intertextual and Intercultural Encounters

Nicholas O. Pagan

6. "The Impossibility of Knowing": Exoticism and East-West Intersections in the Travel Writings of Victor Segalen

Yu Min Claire Chen

7. A Passage to the West: Globalization and the Refugee Crisis in Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West

Aslı Değirmenci Altın

8. "Make the Best of Both Worlds": Utopianism in Aldous Huxley’s Island and D. T. Suzuki’s Social Thought

Hisashi Ozawa

9. Remote Translators: Translational Life Narrative in Edward Seidensticker and Donald Richie

David Huddart

Part III: Re-Orienting National History and Glocalizing Contexts

10. Rethinking Rural China: Zhang Yimou’s Red Sorghum and the Roots-Searching Movement in a Post-Cultural Revolution Context

Qiao Li

11. China’s Orient in Fan de Siècle Culture

Sheng-Mei Ma

12. Reorienting Sinophone America through "Sinophone Orientalism"

Melody Yunzi Li

13. Between Script and Genre: A Space Where East Meets West

Sung-Ae Lee

Index