Representing Indochina: the French colonial fantasmatic and the Exposition Coloniale de Paris
Abstract
Representing Indochina: the French colonial fantasmatic and the Exposition Coloniale de Paris SAGE Publications, Inc.1995DOI: 10.1177/095715589500600103 Panivong Norindr Department of French and Italian, P.O. Box 413, The University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI 53201, USA * Research for this essay was funded by a Graduate School Research Fellowship from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. I am also indebted to the Center for Twentieth Century Studies (UW-Milwaukee) under the directorship of Kathleen Woodward, and the Institute for Research in the Humanities (UW-Madison), for creating congenial space and time for me to write. In particular, I want to thank Rebecca Karoff, Marina Perez de Mendiola, and Patrice Petro for their comments on 'Indochine' as fantasmatic In his latest book, Edward Said re-examines the relationship between culture and empire as a complex engagement with and 'struggle over geography' (Culture: 7). He considers the novel to be 'the aesthetic object' par excellence, of particular significance for the 'formation of imperial attitudes, references and experiences' (Culture: xii, emphasis in original). Other critics such as James Clifford, Clifford Geertz, Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger include in their study of colonized cultures other types of cultural forms: museographic and ethnographic displays, rituals and ceremonies, traditions. They argue