India : the seductive and seduced "Other" of German orientalism
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
India : the seductive and seduced "Other" of German orientalism
(Contributions in comparative colonial studies, no. 39)
Greenwood Press, 2000
Available at 3 libraries
  Aomori
  Iwate
  Miyagi
  Akita
  Yamagata
  Fukushima
  Ibaraki
  Tochigi
  Gunma
  Saitama
  Chiba
  Tokyo
  Kanagawa
  Niigata
  Toyama
  Ishikawa
  Fukui
  Yamanashi
  Nagano
  Gifu
  Shizuoka
  Aichi
  Mie
  Shiga
  Kyoto
  Osaka
  Hyogo
  Nara
  Wakayama
  Tottori
  Shimane
  Okayama
  Hiroshima
  Yamaguchi
  Tokushima
  Kagawa
  Ehime
  Kochi
  Fukuoka
  Saga
  Nagasaki
  Kumamoto
  Oita
  Miyazaki
  Kagoshima
  Okinawa
  Korea
  China
  Thailand
  United Kingdom
  Germany
  Switzerland
  France
  Belgium
  Netherlands
  Sweden
  Norway
  United States of America
Description and Table of Contents
Description
Germans of various disciplines not only encouraged but actively framed a discourse that gendered India through voyeuristic descriptions of the male and female body. This study challenges the German's claim to an encounter with India projected on a spiritual plane of communion between kindred spirits and shows that such supposedly apolitical encounters are really strategies of domination. German participation in European Expansion can be perceived as collusion with the British imperialist administration inasmuch as it provided the latter with a justification for existing colonial rule and anticipated future colonial activity. Despite the optimism placed in the post of post-colonialism, the continued presence of European Orientalism can be felt in the late 20th century, hidden under the mantel of global capitalism.
Although Germany did not colonize India territorially, Germans of various disciplines not only encouraged but actively framed a discourse that gendered India through voyeuristic descriptions of the male and female body. German orientalist experiences of Hindu India have typically been excluded from post-colonial debates concerning European expansion, but this study challenges the German's claim to an encounter with India projected on a spiritual plane of communion between kindred spirits and shows that such supposedly apolitical encounters are really strategies of domination. German participation can be perceived as collusion with the British imperialist administration inasmuch as it provided the latter with a justification for existing colonial rule and anticipated future colonial activity. Murti sheds light on the role that missionaries and women, two groups that have been ignored or glossed over until now, played in authorizing and strengthening the colonial discourse.
The intertextual strategies adopted by the various partners in the colonialist dialog clearly show that German involvement in India was not a disinterested, academic venture. These writings also betray a bias against women that has not been regarded, until now, as a key issue in the literature discussing Orientalism. Missionaries often actively fostered the British colonial agenda, while women travelers, even those who traveled as a means of escaping patriarchal structures at home, invariably abetted the colonizer. Despite the optimism placed in the post of post-colonialism, Murti concludes that the continued presence of European Orientalism can be felt in the late 20th century, hidden under the mantel of global capitalism.
Table of Contents
Preface Uses and Abuses of the "Aryan Myth" Inventing the Orient: The Discursive Alliance Between Philosopher, Historian, and Fiction Writer Excavating the "Indian" Mind: The Intersection of Gender and Race in the "Scientific" Discourses of the Indologist and the Anthropologist Empowering the Self: The Traveler and Her Quest "Ob Die Weiber Menschen Sind" - Are Women Human? The Travails of Missionaries and "Prophets" The Eternal Recurrence of the Orientalist: Gunter Grass Zunge Zeigen Bibliography Index
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