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Patricia Purtschert: Becoming Self through the Other: Another History of the Enlightenment
Becoming Self through the Other: Another History of the Enlightenment
(p. 31 – 42)

Patricia Purtschert

Becoming Self through the Other: Another History of the Enlightenment

PDF, 12 pages

  • Enlightenment
  • art
  • exotism
  • Switzerland

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English

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English

Patricia Purtschert

studied Philosophy, Modern History and Modern German Literature and Language at Basel University and the University of Ghana, Legon. She is a member of the SNF research project »Ambizione« on »Postcolonial Switzerland« at the ETH Zurich.

Other texts by Patricia Purtschert for DIAPHANES
Claire Brizon (ed.), Chonja Lee (ed.), ...: Exotic Switzerland?

Why is an object, an artwork, or a person deemed “exotic”? How does one’s gaze get directed onto things or people seemingly belonging to other regions or cultures? These questions are examined here in relation to a specific context: the Enlightenment era from the Swiss perspective. This publication brings together research by academics and museum specialists for the first time in order to rethink this time period and geography. It contains essays and shorter texts centered on pictures, objects, books, and natural specimens from Swiss museum collections. “Exotic” in this context refers to things that come from elsewhere and that can be used and “improved” for the benefit of European powers. The term invites us to reconsider both the long eighteenth century and the international history of Switzerland.

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