INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM
Orientalism in Latin America:
A look and a discourse specific to the Far West?
Brief presentation of the event
Symposium Venue : Fundacion Los Cedros, Buenos Aires
Symposium Dates: June 2011
Number of participants: 16 speakers
Members of the Organizing Committee: Myriem Aboutaher (IHEAL – CREDA) /
Cassandre Bouvier
GRIMAAL
Interdisciplinary Research Group
Arab world and Latin America
Symposium Presentation
Neither a school, nor a movement or even a style, Orientalism would be defined
nowadays as a strong intellectual, artistic and scientific interest developed, designed and
built during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries by Western thinkers on the East. This
strong interest has often been criticized as a caricatured and fantasized vision
of the East. In 1978, one of the greatest theoreticians of post-colonialism, Edward Said,
in his famous book Orientalism, defines this phenomenon as "a style of domination,
restructuring and having authority over the Orient ". He associates the motivations of
European intellectuals and artists with ethnocentrism and imperialism.
Often exclusively associated with European and American worlds, Orientalism moved and
established itself worldwide, particularly in the Southern Cone. Latin American authors
have published extensively on the East: travelers, missionaries, scholars and
intellectuals, as well as pioneering works such as the Spanish translation
of oriental works of art by El Capitan Burton, Galland, Lane, and the Doctor Madrus and
Enno Littmann of the Tales from the Thousand and One Nights (1711), and the verses of
Omar al Khayyam or Rubaiyat Omar al Khayam and, more contemporarily, dramas
featuring protagonists moving between these two worlds. Let’s cite Jorge Amado’s works
De Como los turcos descubrieron America, or the Colombian poet Guillermo Valencia’s
works, Ritos, Los Camellos and Balada which helped shape the desire of imaginary
escape into these distant places, whether Islamic, Turkish, Arab, Indian, Chinese or
Japanese.
Most of these famous Latin American authors depict an Orient oscillating between reality
and imagination. Similarly, several Latin American universities have developed a more
scientific thinking through many laboratories specialized in the East, as the National
Autonomous University of Mexico or the University of Buenos Aires.
Yet, few books have developed and criticized this Hispanic Orientalism specific to the Far
West. Why? What are the specifics of this Orientalism? What are the common parts that
make it closer or make it diverge from the "classic" Orientalism? Would it be insofar
stripped of any geopolitical interest? The theme of this symposium is to focus on
Orientalist thinking in Latin America. An Orientalism spared, as it seems, from the critics
of imperialism and ethnocentrism.
What are the differences in viewpoints between European Orientalism and Latin American
Orientalism? Where does Orientalism stand nowadays? Did it reach the end or is it still
evolving? What are its main characteristics?
During these two days, we would like to discuss Orientalism in Latin America. To this
respect, we have identified four areas:
Perspective 1:
Orientalists according to Edward Said: lover but hegemonic. Criticizing the European
Orientalism.
Perspective 2:
The characteristics
productions.
of
Latin
American
Orientalism
through
literary
and
artistic
Perspective 3:
Imaginations, representations and discourses: How
the imagination of Latin Americans vis-à-vis the East?
did
the
Orientalists
shape
Perspective 4:
Orientalism and geopolitics.
The symposium languages are French, Portuguese, English and Spanish.
Proposals (maximum 350 words) are to be sent to the following address:
grimaal.iheal @ gmail.com by februray 15, 2010, with the following information: name
and surname, telephone, e-mail address and a brief presentation of the author.