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Call for Publications Theme: Orientalism/Orientalisms Publication: Altre Modernità. Rivista di studi letterari e culturali Date: Issue No. 8 (November 2012) Deadline: 10.2.2012 __________________________________________________ Edited by Nicoletta Vallorani and Emanuele Monegato In 1978, Edward Said publishes Orientalism. This essay marks a turning point in postcolonial and cultural studies especially because it radically questions the western perspective on the Orient. Examining the diachronic process that led to the European perception of its oldest and richest colonies, Said is straightforward in stating that “Orientalism is a style of thought based upon an ontological & epistemological distinction made between ‘the Orient’ and (most of the time) ‘the Occident’” (Said 1978: 3). In this distinction, the Occident has tacitly acquired the role of the hegemonic culture which, putting forward its partial and incomplete vision of the Orient, has literally “created” it (Said 1978: 40), through the selective accumulation of notions biased by a single assumption: the burden of white men is unchanged, and as democratic as western democracy may be, it remains substantiated by the practice of a power with confused though unquestionable origins. Frantz Fanon, in drawing his “white mask”, reports the same concept: the Occident claims its possession of reality, language and thought, and labels as inferior everything that does not resemble it. In a Foucaultian way, the Occident proposes a discourse that justifies and authorizes the power of the White Man and reverses the cognitive process, putting interpretation before cognition. In this way, far from critically interpreting a symbolically and historically alien space, the Occident has transformed the Orient into a colonial territory whose assumed aporias are to be emendated by simply overlapping a symbolic and political universe made in the west. More than thirty years later and in the light of a historical and cultural climate that has determined a deep revision of many established positions on the Orient, the aim of this work is to photograph the progressive multiplication and fragmentation of what was once a unitary and unitarily reductive vision. The need to revise the traditional perspective – already explored in Panza’s recent volume (Orientalismi, 2011) – has reasons and results from very different epistemological fields, from philosophy to sociology, from cultural studies to postcolonial and anthropological theories. Our reflection stems from a contemporary history in which the Orient has taken up different and at times opposite shapes, which are no longer identifiable according to just one aspect, whatever this may be. No matter how differing the critical perspectives adopted, they are all based on the same uneven ground: the perception of a radical yet inalienable alterity, not standardizable according to traditional categories. The mystery of the east, in other words, seems to have become more articulated in time, though maintaining all its revolutionary connotation as reported in Said, and has produced diversified profiles of the Orient. Plurality has not reduced alterity. On the contrary, these many “orients” seem to have multiplied the fear of what is other and thus incomprehensible. Within this horizon, Issue 8 of Other Modernities intends to develop, both from a theoretical and an applied perspective, the following research lines: - The concept of Orient in contemporary times: Geographic and symbolic spaces - Orientalisms and imperialisms - Orientalisms and globalization - Orientalisms and the fear of the other - Terrorism/terrorisms - Colonization reversed: The Orient conquering the Occident - The cultural exportation of oriental models - and oriental worlds Naturally, the Scientific Committee will thoroughly evaluate any different proposals on the subject that may be put forth by potential contributors, with the objective of widening the exploration undertaken with this issue to include any articulated and original suggestions. The editorial board has established the following deadlines. Authors should send in their proposals in the form of a 10 (min.)-20 (max.) line abstract with a short biosketch to [email protected] by no later than 10 February 2012. The editorial office will inform authors whose contributions are accepted by 20 February 2012. Contributions must be received by 20 June 2012. The issue will be published by the end of November 2012. Reviews or interviews to authors or researchers dealing with the issue’s subject will also be welcome. In order to make the contributions as consistent as possible, the editors are fully available to be contacted by authors by email or through the editorial office ([email protected]). Contact: Emanuele Monegato Altre Modernità Università degli Studi di Milano Italia Email: [email protected] Web: http://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/AMonline/ __________________________________________________ InterPhil List Administration: http://interphil.polylog.org Intercultural Philosophy Calendar: http://cal.polylog.org __________________________________________________
