Supervisors info:
Πέγκυ Καρπούζου, Eπίκουρη Καθηγήτρια Νεοελληνικής Φιλολογίας, Τμήμα Φιλολογίας, Φιλοσοφική Σχολή ΕΚΠΑ
Summary:
This essay attempts to peruse a number of Greek travel texts written after the Second World War pertaining the Far East. These texts, written after the collapse of colonization and the rise of Communism in East Asia, highlight the ambivalent reaction of the Greeks towards these changes. At the same time, the essay offers an analysis of stereotypes about the East in general, and the Far East in particular.
Thus, the essay has two main goals: Firstly, it aims to analyze the reconstruction of stereotypical representation of the East as an socio-economic model opposite to western capitalism, after the Second World War and the emergence of nationalist and/ or leftist movements in South-East Asia,. The second aim of the essay is to discuss the reaction of Greek writers to the newly formed dipoles. Besides, Greece, since its independence, has been trying to find its way between the West and the East. Thus, the description and positioning of the East on the similarity-diversity axis is a testimony to the consciousness of the Greek identity. As Dimitris Tzavas notes, "identity is not a fixed, but an ambivalent relationship. It is structured in and through speech, like the narration of the self. " Thus, this paper discusses how Greek writers perceived Greece's position between the two worlds, the eastern and the western at that time, as well as whether the political ideology of the writers is related to the way they face the East and its relationship with Greece.
The analysis of the texts will be based on contemporary cultural studies. In particular, this paper will try to demonstrate the (re) production of the otherness through travel writing. The influence of travel texts on the formation of national stereotypes has interested comparative literature since the 1950s, mainly with the studies of French comparatists such as J.M. Carré and J.M.Mourra. However, the work that highlighted this back-stair influence was Edward Said's Orientalism. According to Said, Orientalism (ie the European scientific and artistic interest for the East) functioned as a Western form of domination over the East through speech. Asia, and the East in general, is an area that is not geographically defined (there are no clear geographic boundaries with Europe), but ideologically, a place that, as Edward Said has said, "has always been a place of romance, exotic creatures, unforgettable memories and landscapes ". This stereotypical representation of Asia by the Europeans was consolidated around the 19th century, and was largely linked to the simultaneous emergence of the travel narration. Indeed, the Eastern countries were the prime destination of 19th-century travel writers, wishing to escape western culture and to experience the primitive, barbarous Asia. In recent decades, with the collapse of colonies and globalization, we see travel writers trying to shake off these stereotypes and look for the real nature of the East. But even if the writers seem more conscientious to the issues of heterogeneity, the prejudices about Asia have not disappeared.
The theory of Orientalism will therefore be one of the basic theoretical tools of the present essay, as it tries to highlight whether or not Orientalist stereotypes survive or are overridden by Greek travel writers. Moreover, through the analysis of the texts and the description of the different national groups of Asia, we will try to highlight any inconsistencies in the presentation of the Oriental identity by the writers, where the writers overcome the Orientalist tradition and consider the nations of the East as self- cultural differences, with unique characteristics and not simplistic as Oriental.
Keywords:
στερεότυπα, οριενταλισμός, πολιτισμική εικονολογία, ταξιδιογραφία, ιδεολογία και λογοτεχνία, πολιτισμικές σπουδές, ταξιδιωτική λογοτεχνία
