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Category=JPA
Category=NHF
cultural encounters
East and West
East Asia
East Asian studies
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eq_history
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history
literary studies
orientalism
transcultural studies
Product details
- ISBN 9781399500517
- Dimensions: 156 x 234mm
- Publication Date: 17 Apr 2023
- Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Hardback
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Examines why and how cultural encounters between East Asia and Europe are framed as failures
Opens up fresh perspectives on intercultural encounters by focusing on failures as a paradigm
Argues that a focus on failure helps to uncover the normative perspectives and expectations of intercultural encounters
Establishes that intercultural encounters add a valuable new perspective to the emerging field of failure studies
Often, the story of encounters between Asia and the West has been told as one of success, of cross-fertilization, reciprocal stimulation and an exchange of commodities and knowledge. Yet, the history of East-West encounters is riddled with prominent examples of misunderstandings, ignorance, unrealistic expectations or unbridgeable cultural differences. Bringing together scholars working across Chinese Studies, Japanese Studies, English Studies and French Studies, this book presents new perspectives on such instances by theorizing epistemologies of failure. Providing examples from different periods and disciplines, it reveals how culturally informed expectations and biases, performative and linguistic practices and imaginative horizons specific to the cultures involved shape notions of failure and success. Case studies range from first encounters in the early modern period to contemporary novels and focus on actual or imaginary encounters between East Asia and Western European cultures.
University of Trier, Germany Kirsten Sandrock is Chair of English Literature and Cultural Studies at the University of Würzburg. Her research ranges from the early modern literature and culture to contemporary Anglophone studies, and she has published widely on intercultural encounters, colonial and postcolonial studies, Shakespeare, travel writing, gender and genre studies. She is the author of Scottish Colonial Literature: Writing the Atlantic, 1603–1707 (Edinburgh University Press, 2021), co-editor of Locating Italy: East and West in British-Italian Transactions (2013) and of the Shakespeare Seminar Online.
