Anti-orientalist Orientalism?: Reading César Aira

• In Event: Asia/Asians in Contemporary Latin American Culture

Abstract

The growing body of research on Asians in Latin America has increased our understanding of this historically understudied group. It has also revealed, however, that orientalist perspectives continue to be pervasive in the way Asia and Asian-descendants are imagined and viewed in Latin America. This paper contributes to on-going debates about the particularities and complexities of Latin American orientalism—which, as scholars have noted, can range from latent imperialistic desires to strategic self-orientalisms and critical parodies. By examining two recent short novels by César Aira, this paper seeks to understand the role of orientalist writing in twenty-first century Argentina. Given that such orientalist writing appears to be acutely self-aware and intended for an equally aware readership, I question how we can understand anti-orientalist orientalism, that is, a seemingly widespread trend to criticize orientalism through an exaggerated orientalist writing. Linking this trend to critiques of postmodernism, this paper questions whether an anti-orientalist orientalism marks the limits of the political viabilities of orientalism and postmodernism.

Author

• Teresa Ko, Ursinus College