Disorientations. Latin American Fictions of East Asia
Contributors: Siskind, Mariano; Sorensen, Diana; Sevcenko, Nicolau; Damrosch, David
Published: 2014
Language: eng
Description: This dissertation explores the relationship between fiction, knowledge and "knowing" in Latin American discourses of China and Japan. By scrutinizing Brazilian and Hispanic American travel journals, novels, short stories and essays from the nineteenth century to the present, Disorientations engages with the epistemological problems of writing across cultural boundaries and proposes a novel entryway into the study of East Asia and Latin American through the notions of "cultural distance," "fictional Sinology" and "critical exoticism."
Notes: Keywords: coolie trade, Jorge Luis Borges, orientalism, Sinology, translation, travel fiction.

Thesis Ph.D. Harvard University 2014