Beyond the “White Man’s Burden”?

This one-day workshop seeks to examine the shifting image of the “Far East” in the English-speaking world, including - but not limited to - news, film, museums, exhibitions, travel literature and television. In part, it seeks to complement the study of media representations with a tentative assessment of their reception, and by examining the overlapping areas between media representations and historical events. The period since the Second World War has seen profound changes in the “Far East”, notably because of decolonization, the creation of independent nation-states and the increasing power of China, Japan and India. This workshop will examine the persistence (or not) of the “white man’s burden” in a post-imperial age.