Open AccessEn mangfoldighed af spejle: Europa og modernitet i rejselitteratur fra Asien og Afrika
Author(s) -
Tabish Khair
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
k and k/kandk
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2246-2589
pISSN - 0905-6998
DOI - 10.7146/kok.v37i108.21996
Subject(s) - essentialism , opposition (politics) , modernity , consciousness , argument (complex analysis) , sociology , focus (optics) , reading (process) , history , political science , anthropology , linguistics , philosophy , epistemology , law , politics , biochemistry , chemistry , physics , optics
This paper explores some ways of understanding ‘Europe’ through a reading of selected travel texts written by non-Europeans. In particular, I focus on three texts written by Indians who travelled to Europe and England between 1750 and 1900, though there are also references to other travel accounts. The main argument of this paper is that such accounts complicate any given definition of ‘Europe’ as well as the values and assumptions of certain usages of terms like ‘Europeanness’, ‘modernity’ and ‘science’. The non-European travel texts show a consciousness of ‘difference’ and can at times contain elements of cultural essentialism, but they do not display a simplistic opposition to ‘Europe’ or the cultural products commonly associated, rightly or wrongly, with Europe.