Research Area D Images of Alterity (D3)

Project Leaders: Lieselotte E. Saurma, Anja Eisenbeiss

Any concept of alterity has to be grounded in an awareness of the other, which builds on a construction of difference between self and other. In times of increasing East-West encounters, often accompanied by asymmetrical shifts in power, perceiving the difference is usually emphasized. This project sought to question this assumption by investigating Western and Eastern images of alterity from the 4th to the 17th century.
It asked for narratives initiated by these images, and for the interpretive acts involved in re-presenting and re-locating alterity in shifting narratives. Instead of pointing out ‘the exotic’, changing contexts of images and the way in which they are inscribed in Eastern, in Western and in East-Western narratives were  analysed. Further research examined how images of alterity were dealt with in different cultures. In which contexts did either stereotyped, fantastic or mimetic images prevail?