England Re-Oriented: How Central and South Asian Travelers Imagined the West, 1750-1857

Humberto Garcia's research reveals that British imperialists' relationships with Asian male partners reveal the social origins of orientalism. These relationships enabled genteel men to inhabit a critical agency and recalibrate Persianate ways of behaving and knowing, offering a unique window into an enchanted third space between empires.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 366 pages
Publication date: 03 November 2022
Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Humberto Garcia delves into the overlooked narratives of westward-bound Central and South Asian travel writers, shedding light on their interactions with English individuals. By examining the experiences of Joseph Emin, Sake Dean Mahomet, Shaykh Itesamuddin, Abu Talib Khan, Abul Hassan Khan, Yusuf Khan Kambalposh, and Lutfullah Khan, Garcia reveals how these genteel men strategically employed their conviviality with Englishwomen and men to assert a critical agency. Through various forms of media, such as drama, dance, masquerades, visual art, museum exhibits, music, postal letters, and newsprint, these men recalibrated Persianate ways of behaving and knowing. Their cosmopolitanism provides a distinctive perspective on a magical third space, where Europe played a peripheral role in Islamic Indo-Eurasia. Within their mediated homosocial intimacies, a queer history of orientalist mimic men under the sway of a powerful Persian manhood unfolds, challenging prevailing notions of orientalism's social origins.

Weight: 544g
Dimension: 151 x 228 x 25 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781108797252