Orientalism Decentered: An Inside and Outside Look at the Periphery in Contemporary Latin American Literature

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

The image of alterity imposed upon the texts and ideas surrounding Latin American has, since the Conquest, taken the concept of the Orient as model. Literary Europe, to establish the image of this strange new land in the West, looked backwards, towards the Other that was already familiar, the Orient. When Latin American authors of the twentieth century began to reexamine, satirize, and rewrite the ideas surrounding their geography as decided from Europe, they also questioned and played with the correlation between their Otherness and that of the East. This panel proposes a study of the usefulness of the Orient, and Orientalism, in determining Latin American identity and autonomy in twentieth century fiction. By moving the Orient into a Latin American perspective, Orientalism is destabilized and decentered. This panel will discuss this process, including its particular ways of manifesting in these contemporary works, and its effects on how we view Orientalism, Latin America, and the periphery.

Sub Track

• Literary Studies: Contemporary

Chair

• Allison E White, Tulane University

Individual Presentations

• Domingo Faustino Sarmiento and the Near East of Jorge Luis Borges - Allison E White, Tulane University

• De Oriente al “otro oriente”: la estética de la repetición en Cobra (1972) - Paula C Park, Ohio University

• Eduardo Lalo's Simone: A Heterosexist Fantasy of the Asian Lesbian - Juan P Rivera, Clark University