The Dialectics of Orientalism in Early Modern Europe ; Keller, Marcus, Irigoyen-García, Javier (Eds.)

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Keller, Marcus, Irigoyen-García, Javier (Eds.), The Dialectics of Orientalism in Early Modern Europe, Palgrave-Macmillan UK, XV-258 p., 2018, 99 $

Uniting twelve original studies by scholars of early modern history, literature, and the arts, this collection is the first that foregrounds the dialectical quality of early modern Orientalism by taking a broad interdisciplinary perspective. Dialectics of Orientalism demonstrates how texts and images of the sixteenth and seventeenth century from across Europe and the New World are better understood as part of a dynamic and transformative orientalist discourse rather than a manifestation of the supposed dichotomy between the ‘East’ and the ‘West.’ The volume’s central claim is that early modern orientalist discourses are fundamentally open, self-critical, and creative. Analyzing a varied corpus-from German and Dutch travelogues to Spanish humanist treaties, French essays, Flemish paintings, and English diaries-this collection thus breathes fresh air into the critique of Orientalism and provides productive new perspectives for the study of east-west and indeed globalized exchanges in the early modern world.

 Table of contents

  • A Captive Library Between Morocco and Spain, Zhiri, Oumelbanine, Pages 17-31

  • Political Pragmatism, Humanist Ideals, and Early Modern Orientalism in Busbecq’s Turkish Letters, Şahin, Kaya, Pages 33-49

  • Competing Forms of Knowledge in Adam Olearius’s Orientalische Reise, Heero, Aigi (et al.), Pages 51-66

  • The Discourse Regarding the Chinese and Muslim Worlds in the Hispanic Empire (New Spain and Castile, c.1550–1630), Gasch-Tomás, José L. (et al.), Pages 69-84

  • Mapping Islam in the Philippines: Moro Anxieties of the Spanish Empire in the Pacific, Rodríguez-Rodríguez, Ana M., Pages 85-100

  • The Invention of Europe and the Intellectual Struggle for Political Imagination: Spanish Humanism on the Ottomans, Ohanna, Natalio, Pages 101-117

  • France, Europe, and the Orient in the Essays: Montaigne’s Dialectics, Keller, Marcus, Pages 121-136

  • Mehmed II and His Woman: The Idea of Europe in Early Modern Representations of a Female Captive, Moberly, David C., Pages 137-153

  • Was There a Pan-European Orientalism? Icelandic and Flemish Perspectives on Captivity in Muslim North Africa (1628–1656), Wikström, Toby, Pages 155-170

  • Christians of Ottoman Europe in Sixteenth-Century Costume Books, Radway, Robyn D., Pages 173-193

  • Amazon Battle and the Seventeenth-Century Antwerp Painting Canon, Rosenthal, Lisa, Pages 195-215

  • The Architectural Setting of “Empire”: The English Experience of Ottoman Spectacle in the Late Seventeenth Century and Its Consequences, Soo, Lydia M., Pages 217-245