The Dialectics of Orientalism in Early Modern Europe
October 7-8, 2011, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Levis Faculty Center
France and Its Others
(ARTH 447)
Spring 2011
Prof. David O’Brien
313 Mumford Hall, TuTh 9:30-10:50
obrien1@illinois.edu
This course explores representations of France’s colonial empire during the nineteenth century in paintings, prints, photographs, novels, travel accounts, and exhibitions. We shall begin by reading Edward Said’s Orientalism, a major theoretical work that examines French and British representations of the Middle East and North Africa. The remainder of the course approaches the subject through case studies. These include paintings of Napoleon Bonaparte’s invasion of Egypt, Delacroix’s pictures of Morocco, Chateaubriand’s novella about love between a half-Spanish, half-Indian woman and a Native American man, Flaubert’s travels in Egypt, Renoir’s paintings of Algeria, and Gauguin’s writing and pictures of Tahiti. We shall attempt to draw conclusions about the appeal of the colonies to these artists and to their audience and the various functions of their representations within French society.