Between Orientalism and Borealism: French Visions of Belgium and Bohemia in the 1860s

• In Event: Modernist Network between the North and the East

Abstract

This presentation analyzes the French perception of Belgian and Czech literature during the 1860s as a form of Euro-orientalism and “boréalisme”. The orientalist and colonial dimension and motivations of the nineteenth century “discovery” of Belgium and of Central Europe (Bohemia in particular) by its Western neighbors remains largely unexplored. Following the premises of Walecka-Garbalinska’s research (2016), we will study both the endogenous and exogenous appropriation of the euro-orientalist and and boréaliste gaze on Belgium and Bohemia in the 1860s.

Author

• Petra James, U libre de Bruxelles (Belgium)