VV(18): African and oriental

[Dave Monroe]

"The place was decorated African and oriental: black
pieces of primitive sculpture, lamp in the shape of a
dragon, silks, Chinese Red." (V., Ch. 14, sec. ii, p.
406)

"Orientalism--at this period showing up all over Paris
in fashions, music, theater--had been connected along
with Russia to an international movement seeking to
overthrow Western civilization." (V., Ch. 14, sec. ii,
p. 412)

I doubt I have to expound much on modernist
primitivism, orientalism, exoticism, what have you,
that fetishization of the Other, and attendant
articulations to colonialism, imperialism, tourism,
racism, sexism, what have you, that denigration and
exploitation of the Other, to this audience, but ...

"an Algerian-looking facteur" (p. 393)

"L'Enlevement des Vierges Chinoises" (p. 396 ff.)

"Su Feng, the virgin who is tortured to death
defending her purity against the invading Mongolians"
(p. 396 ff.)

"embroidered up each leg a long, slender dragon" (p.
397)

"the kimono" (p. 397)

"jungly greens" (p. 397)

"L'Ouganda" (p. 398 ff.)

"a Negro girl, one of the dancers" (p. 398)

("He thought of francs and centimes" [p. 398])

"'Fled to the jungle, I understand,' Satin said." (p.
399)

"'... and we are all Jews'" (p. 399)

"the color of a Negro's head" (p. 399)

"Empire style" (p. 399)

"harem veil" (p. 399)

"the plumage of equatorial birds" (p. 399)

"Fan with amber stick, ostrich feathers, silk tassel."
(p. 399)

"tortoise-shell pins" (p. 400)

"The tango" (p. 400)

"sentimental Russian ballads" (p. 403)

"black pieces of primitive sculpture, lamp in the
shape of a dragon, silks, Chinese red." (p. 406)

"Karl Baedeker of Leipzig" (p. 409)

"'tourists'" (p. 409 f.)

A few seminal titles ...

Gilman, Sander L.  Difference and Pathology:
   Stereotypes of Sexuality, Race and Madness.
   Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 1986.

MacCannell, Dean.  The Tourist:
   A New Theory of the Leisure Class.
   New York: Schocken, 1976.

Said, Edward W.  Orientalism.
   New York: Pantheon, 1978.

Torgovnick, Marianna.  Gone Primitive:
   Savage Intellects, Modern Lives.
   Chicago: U of Chicago,

"Only six years before a newspaper had been able to
sponsor an auto-race from Peking to Paris, and enlist
the willing assistance of all the countries in
between.  The political situation these days was
somewhat darker.  Hence the turmoil which erupted that
night in the Theatre Vincent Castor." (V., Ch. 14,
sec. ii, p. 412)

Now, everybody ...

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