D3: Images of Alterity in East and West First Project Round-Table: What are Images of Alterity? Ladenburg, Karl Benz Zentrum, May 30th June 1st, 2008

Transcription

1 ASIA AND EUROPE IN A GLOBAL CONTEXT CLUSTER OF EXCELLENCE UNIVERSITY OF HEIDELBERG D3: Images of Alterity in East and West First Project Round-Table: What are Images of Alterity? Ladenburg, Karl Benz Zentrum, May 30th June 1st, 2008 Participants: Anja Eisenbeiß, Annette Hoffmann, Monica Juneja, Lieselotte E. Saurma, Larry Silver, Michael Stolz Guests: Dagmar Eichberger (Saturday), Maren Christine Härtel (HRA2), Markus Hilgert (D2), Mayumi Ikeda (London), Frank Krämer (D1), Julika Singer (D1) This was the first, constitutive meeting of the Images of Alterity research group. The general objective of this group, forming part of Heidelberg University s Cluster of Excellency Asia and Europe ( is to understand representations of the Eastern and the Western other in transcultural encounters, thus disclosing processes through which constructs of alterity are actualised to integrate the other into one s own cultural discourses, to mark out differences between self and other, or to exclude the other altogether. The aim of the workshop was manifold. Firstly we had to inform our key partners on the aims, structure and organization of the cluster and particularly of the project s research architecture. In this first meeting, joined by guests from other projects working on related or similar topics, we wanted to learn about the research interests and specific research topics of each of the group s members, for the methodological transfer of different traditions of scholarly approaches to interpreting visual or literal images of otherness will be crucial for the overall success of the group. Getting this process started was one of the meeting s main objectives. Additionally, we aimed at discussing future collaboration within the group and the cluster, which included planning research visits, conferences and public events over the next two years. LIESELOTTE E. SAURMA opened the workshop with a talk on modes of visualizing alterity in western European painting of the high and late middle ages. By discussing, among others, illuminated manuscripts of the Histoire d Outremer, as well as John Mandeville s and Marco 1

2 Polo s Travels, she highlighted crucial ways how the other is constructed in western medieval societies to constitute the self. Supposing that the other is either a construct that subsumes all that is contradictory to one s own cultural and social order, or notably with respect to the Near and Far East some utopian dream that aimed to transcend such societal order, she was able to show that visualizing ethnicity became a major subject of concern at the time of the Crusades, especially since the Fourth Lateran Council (1215). Although visual representations of otherness were mainly depicted through people and inscribed on their bodies, whether by means of costume, property, conduct or the colour of the skin, which was frequently subject to change, hybrid images of otherness were the norm. So visual otherness seems for the most part to be a synthesising process, using well known stereotypes, and mixing them with strange motifs and features of one s own culture. For this reason there is a necessity for careful research in contextualisation and different models of intertextuality when dealing with questions of alterity in medieval visual culture. A group of illuminated manuscripts of St Augustine s City of God in the French translation by Raoul de Presles was presented by ANJA EISENBEISS. With its discussion of Christian supremacy over pagan antiquity, for which the fall of the Roman Empire offered clear evidence, St Augustine s book offered both a vivid story of the Christian self and the pagan other and insight into the history and culture of ancient Rome as a fascinating source of knowledge and wisdom. Around 1400 the text was most popular in French courtly cycles; and up to forty copies, containing for the first time a rich picture cycle, were produced by French ateliers. In depicting the pagan other, especially Greek and Roman philosophers, these manuscripts allow us to study the various ways in which Parisian illuminators visualized alterity in times of growing encounters with non-christians, especially Muslims. As well as synthesised images of hybrid others, engaged in unfamiliar religious rituals and philosophical debates, the corpus also includes rather mimetic portraits of Persians that seem to imitate not only the look, but also the style of Near Eastern illumination. It is this concurrence of distinct visual languages in one and the same image, which will be addressed by the project. ANNETTE HOFFMANN s paper was dedicated to Jewish, Christian and Islamic illustrations of Exodus, especially depictions of the Crossing of the Red Sea. She presented examples of three possible fields of investigation: late antique, medieval Western and medieval Eastern illustrations, raising questions about the different ways in which alterity is visualized or visually emphasized. A central issue consisted of analyzing the formal solutions employed to demarcate 2

3 the self (that is, the Israelites) from the other (the Egyptians), not only through composition, line and framing methods but also through gestures that create border lines and spaces of different semantic value. Furthermore, the paper was concerned with the image of the Egyptian other, which, as shown in the case of an Arabic 14 th -century manuscript, could be substituted by another tribe that might have been alien or even hostile to the illuminator s ambience. The workshop s second day was devoted to research conducted by the project s key partners. MICHAEL STOLZ (Bern) gave an introductory overview concerning the concept of world literature as discussed in language studies, before demonstrating how this debate can be applied to address questions of alterity in medieval literature. From the time of Goethe to the 1970 s world literature was understood as a global circulation of texts analogous to the way merchandise flows from supplier to consumer. It was not until the postcolonial turn in literary studies that this rather Eurocentristic view was displaced by an idea of writing between worlds (Ottmar Ette, ZwischenWeltenSchreiben) and theories of Third-World-Literatures. Especially in relation to contemporary writing, such concepts are useful in shifting interest to the migration of literatures and people in order to investigate the bipolarity of difference versus the dynamics of distance (Andrea Polaschegg, Der andere Orientalismus). A lack of suitable sources because of primarily oral modes of information transfer in the middle ages poses a challenge for the medievalist, who aims at discussing such concepts of world literature in earlier times. Through a comparative description of the 11 th -century Persian epic Vis and Ramin and Gottfried of Strasbourg s Tristan and Iseult, Stolz underlined the distinct resemblances between both plots, but also differences in dramaturgy and narrative strategies. The same was obvious when looking at medieval Western translations of Eastern epics. Common concepts of reciprocal influences do not seem to answer these questions posed by close description and cannot explain the step from difference to entanglement. Thus the discussion stressed the process of assembling texts, in which drafts with different origins are subjected to reflection and interpretation. LARRY SILVER (Pennsylvania) discussed images of the Turks in 16 th -century Germany and the Netherlands. Since the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453 the Western perception of this rival Islamic superpower had changed decisively. A climate of fear spread over most European states, especially those territories that knew the foreign enemy on their frontier. The attitudes displayed by images of Turks in German and Netherlandish prints in these times can be characterized either as negative propaganda or as a more objective, almost ethnographic, 3

4 interest two positions that could also be blended within one and the same picture. By analyzing prints from Bernhard Breydenbach s Peregrinationes in Terram Sanctam (Mainz: Erhard Reuwich, 1486), Albrecht Dürer s images of turks, and the imperial processions of Pieter Coecke van Aelst and Melchior Lorich, Silver disclosed the continual oscillation between the two extreme poles. He concluded that a fascination for visualizing Turks and Turkish panoramas was especially distinct in the work of artists who had experienced cities like Istanbul and Tunis in person instead of relying on stereotypes. Within the cluster Silver plans to focus his research on changes in 16 th -century encounters between Europe and its eastern neighbours, especially Dutch views of Asia. He will spend his sabbatical, scheduled for winter term 2009/10 at Heidelberg. The last paper was presented by MONICA JUNEJA (Atlanta/Delhi) who discussed visual practices between mimesis and alterity in pre-colonial North and Central India. Her point of departure was the role of Western gifted objects at the Mughal court and their translation into Mughal painting. Gifting was a highly appreciated practice in Mughal court culture, in which gifts were valued for their beauty and elaborate design, meant to disguise their materiality. Gifts from Western diplomats were displayed at the court, and some of them like the globe or the hour glass, found their way into Mughal iconography. In discussing the court artist Bichitr s famous portrait of Jahangir enthroned on an oversized hourglass, Juneja pointed out that objects from foreign cultures incorporated into such images were meant to retain and show their alterity, so that the painting s complex visual language could be understood. But Bichitr not only incorporated alienated Western objects into his painting; he also included a portrait of himself. This is a feature uncommon in earlier Mughal painting, in which the artists used to write their names on the frame; but was definitely adopted from Western visual practices. So Mughal painting allows one to study the encounter of two distinct visual systems, which show parallels, interact with each other and thus create new visual practices without merging altogether. Following the presentations by the project members and key partners, our guests from the cluster gave short introductions to their research. Further collaboration and exchange seems to be desirable with the members of research group D1 Historicizing the experience of violence without frontiers. Influence and importance of shifting asymmetries. The example of the Mongolian invasion in the thirteenth century, who deal with similar questions of otherness and alterity concerning the perception of the Mongols in Asia and Europe. The migration of objects is a subject of research conducted within the project D2: Materiality and Practice. 4

5 Cultural Entanglements of 2 nd millennium BC East Mediterranean Societies. Here the methodological approach shows some parallels suitable for future collaboration. Anja Eisenbeiß June