Much recent writing about Asian societies and Asian Histories adopts a homogenising vision of humanity. It views the definition of cultural difference as an ‘Orientalist’ project serving colonial or neo-colonial purposes. This unusual collection of essays, written by leading specialists in a range of disciplines. re-appraises and expands the ‘Orientalism’ debate. Several authors examine the ways in which the Asian ‘other’ acts as a creative stimulus for the European artist, composer and playwright. The work of Monet, Debussy and Brecht, for instance, is explored to suggest a subtle and complex circulation of idea between the ‘Orient’ and the ‘West’. Other essays investigate the scholar’s own encounter with the exotic, in particular they ask to what extent Western concepts and categories can be used in the analysis of Asian societies and cultures. Among the concepts considered are ‘space’ (in Chinese art); ‘landscape’, ‘high art’, ‘low art’ and ‘opera’ (in Indonesia) and ‘tragedy’, the ‘book’, concert music’ and ‘subjectivity’ (in Japan). Furthermore, the implications of orality and literacy are examined in the case of Malay society. Like discredited orientalists, the authors of this volume are in most cases based in the West- in universities in Europe, United Sates and Australia- but their investigations are not grounded in confident assumptions about Western power and civilisation. Recovering the Orient probes the Asian ‘other’ at a time of conceptual uncertainty, when foundational tenets of Western civilisation have come under question.
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