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Chapter 9 - Chinoiseries

from Part II - Networks

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 January 2023

Fernando Degiovanni
Affiliation:
City University of New York
Javier Uriarte
Affiliation:
Stony Brook University, State University of New York
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Summary

Even if the trend of chinoiseries reached its peak in the eighteenth century, in Latin America it persisted and gained new overtones through Modernismo. While in Europe this was a strictly foreign aesthetic found in Asian luxury exports and artifacts mass-produced for a consumer audience, in the Americas it became a racial phenomenon as well. Together with consumer goods, Chinese laborers started migrating to the region, complicating orientalist impressions of China imported from Europe. This chapter reexamines characterizations of Modernismo’s Asian imaginaries as a mere aesthetics of evasion, and instead reads them as a political critique of Chinese labor. While it acknowledges the prominence of the cultural politics of orientalism in the movement’s transcultural imaginaries of chinoiserie, it shows that the portrayal of the China trade opens a discussion on the global division of labor, nineteenth-century migrations, and the desire over foreign bodies.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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References

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  • Chinoiseries
  • Edited by Fernando Degiovanni, City University of New York, Javier Uriarte, Stony Brook University, State University of New York
  • Book: Latin American Literature in Transition 1870–1930
  • Online publication: 14 January 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108976367.010
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  • Chinoiseries
  • Edited by Fernando Degiovanni, City University of New York, Javier Uriarte, Stony Brook University, State University of New York
  • Book: Latin American Literature in Transition 1870–1930
  • Online publication: 14 January 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108976367.010
Available formats
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Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Chinoiseries
  • Edited by Fernando Degiovanni, City University of New York, Javier Uriarte, Stony Brook University, State University of New York
  • Book: Latin American Literature in Transition 1870–1930
  • Online publication: 14 January 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108976367.010
Available formats
×