Inventing exoticism : geography, globalism, and Europe's early modern world

Author:

Schmidt, Benjamin

Format:

Book

Language:

English

Imprint:

Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, ©2015

Subject:

Europe - Civilization - Foreign influences
Geography - Europe - History - 17th century
Geography - Europe - History - 18th century
Exoticism in art
Exoticism in literature
Europe - Civilization - 17th century
Europe - Civilization - 18th century
Netherlands - Civilization - 17th century
Netherlands - Civilization - 18th century

ISBN:

9780812246469 and 0812246462

Series:

Material texts

Description:

xix, 412 pages 16 unnumbered leaves of plates : illustrations (some color) ; 26 cm

Bibliographic Note:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 375-394) and index

Contents:

Introduction: On the invention of exoticism and the invention of Europe -- Printing the world : processed books and exotic stereotypes -- Seeing the world : visuality and exoticism -- Exotic bodies : sex and violence abroad -- Exotic pleasures : geography, material arts, and the "agreeable" world -- Epilogue: From promiscuous assemblage to order and method : Europe and its exotic worlds

Summary:

"As early modern Europe launched its multiple projects of global empire, it simultaneously embarked on an ambitious program of describing and picturing the world. The shapes and meanings of the extraordinary global images that emerged from this process form the subject of this highly original and richly textured study of cultural geography. Inventing Exoticism draws on a vast range of sources from history, literature, science, and art to describe the energetic and sustained international engagements that gave birth to our modern conceptions of exoticism and globalism. Illustrated with more than two hundred images of engravings, paintings, ceramics, and more, Inventing Exoticism shows, in vivid example and persuasive detail, how Europeans came to see and understand the world at an especially critical juncture of imperial imagination. At the turn to the eighteenth century, European markets were flooded by books and artifacts that described or otherwise evoked non-European realms: histories and ethnographies of overseas kingdoms, travel narratives and decorative maps, lavishly produced tomes illustrating foreign flora and fauna, and numerous decorative objects in the styles of distant cultures. Inventing Exoticism meticulously analyzes these, while further identifying the particular role of the Dutch--"Carryers of the World," as Defoe famously called them--in the business of exotica. The form of early modern exoticism that sold so well, as this book shows, originated not with expansion-minded imperialists of London and Paris, but in the canny ateliers of Holland. By scrutinizing these materials from the perspectives of both producers and consumers--and paying close attention to processes of cultural mediation--Inventing Exoticism interrogates traditional postcolonial theories of knowledge and power. It proposes a wholly revisionist understanding of geography in a pivotal age of expansion and offers a crucial historical perspective on our own global culture as it engages in a media-saturated world."-- Book jacket

Collection:

BGC Monograph Stacks

Call Number:

CB203 .S337 2015

Available

c.1