East meets West: Travellers and Scholars writing about India, Japan and Korea

Organised by Zsuzsanna Varga (U of Glasgow, UK), Angeliki Spiropoulou (U of Peloponnese, Greece) , Richard Hibbitt (U of Leeds, UK)  Emilia di Rocco (Sapienza, Rome, Italy), Bernard Franco (Sorbonne, Paris, France)

This panel investigates border crossings manifest in the works of European travellers and scholars as they reflect on their physical and intellectual encounters with India, Japan and Korea from the earliest encounters until the present day. Spatial and metaphorical crossings are equally considered: geographical border crossings as manifested, explored and reconceptualised in earlier and contemporary travel narratives; border crossings in cultural historical terms through geographical and linguistic texts and dictionaries, and border crossings understood symbolically through their translations and creative transcreations. A commitment to the interrogation of World Literature’s genealogy underpins these enquiries through the panel’s exploration of the dimensions of European encounters with the different cultures of the Indian subcontinent, Japan and Korea. Papers will address the physicality of literal and textual encounters during the past four centuries with a view of establishing patterns of the modality. The perception of the Other will be traced through largely non-canonical travel narratives and lesser-known representations by European authors. Whilst acknowledging that, since Said’s work, the framework of Orientalism and its exposure of colonialism has provided the guiding narrative for understanding European encounters with India, Korea and Japan, this panel will offer an interrogation of the generalisability of Said’s assumptions. Inviting discussions on lesser-known texts describing India, Korea and Japan will offer new avenues to theorising East-West encounters. Reflections on patterns underpinning linguistic or geographical treatises will contribute to the cultural history of representations, and will lead to a more nuanced understanding of the assumptions underlying contemporary world cultural histories.

Themes may include (but are not limited to) the dimensions below:

• Languages of international circulation then and now and their influence on Europe and encounters with India and the Korean Peninsula

• Attending to historicity: minor literatures or literatures of non-circulatory languages?

• ‘Small’ European literatures encountering literatures of India and Korea and Japan: modalities, intellectual projects and patronage

• The representations of the Far East in less commonly translated European languages

• In what terms do travellers, linguists and geographers discuss their interest and motives in physical and intellectual travels?

• How are India, Korea and Japan represented in travel writing and scholarly texts?

• Generic conventions and their relationship to representing the lived experience in travel writing

• Homogeneities and particularities over time in travel writing about India, Korea and Japan

Session Details:  Accepted Open Group Individual Submissions
Time: 27/July/2025: 1:00am

How to apply to be part of the session?

Interested colleagues should submit their proposal as an Accepted Open Group Individual Proposal on the conference website ICLA 2025 (https://icla2025-seoul.kr/en/abstract-submissions /abstract-submissions) by Jan 7, 2025,41.59:59 KST.

The submission should contain

 *the title abstract, topic, keywords,

*the name of the group session chair (zsuzsanna.varga@glasgow.ac.uk)

*the name of other speakers:  Angeliki Spiropoulou, Richard Hibbitt, Emilia di Rocco, Bernard Franco

After January 7, the group session chair with notify the applicants about acceptance.   Proposals rejected will be considered in the Congress sessions. For further information, please consult  (https://icla2025-seoul.kr/en/abstract-submissions /abstract-submissions)