Synopses & Reviews
In what he terms an "off-center" reading of the complex Oriental constructions of four modern French authors, Ha (comparative literature, U. of Hong Kong) challenges the facile dichotomy that critics in postcolonial studies -- a field inaugurated by Segalen -- typically draw between the Western colonial Self and the Eastern exotic Other.
Synopsis
The four authors treated here Victor Segalen, Andre Malraux, Marguerite Duras, and Roland Barthes each experienced at one point in his or her life a deep dissatisfaction with modern European values, followed by a turn toward the East. However, due to different class, gender, and personal backgrounds, they each entertained diverse and complex relationships to (post)colonial ideology, which they both served and subverted at the same time. By engaging in an off-center reading of these authors Eastern texts, and by examining their ambiguous constructions of the Orient, Figuring the East challenges the facile dichotomy that postcolonial critics frequently draw between the Western colonial Self and the Eastern exotic Other."