Essay on Exoticism

The Othersource of fear and fascination; emblem of difference demonized and romanticized. Theories of alterity and cultural diversity abound in the contemporary academic landscape. Victor Segalens early attempt to theorize the exotic is a crucial reference point for all discussions of alterity, diversity, and ethnicity. Written over the course of fourteen years between 1904 and 1918, at the height of the age of imperialism, Essay on Exoticism encompasses Segalens attempts to define true Exoticism. This concept, he hoped, would not only replace nineteenth-century notions of exoticism that he considered tawdry and romantic, but also redirect his contemporaries propensity to reduce the exotic to the colonial. His critique envisions a mechanism that appreciates cultural differencewhich it posits as an aesthetic and ontological valuerather than assimilating it: Exoticisms power is nothing other than the ability to conceive otherwise, he writes. Segalens pioneering work on otherness anticipates and informs much of the current postcolonial critique of colonial discourse. As such Essay on Exoticism is essential reading for both cultural theorists or those with an interest in the politics of difference and diversity.