On the Orientalists’ Couch: Questions of Reflexivity from the 18th to the 21st Centuries

A question with many meanings, if ever there was one, for what is the Orient and what is an Orientalist? It is well known that the Orient is a geographical reality but also an imaginary one, as North Africa and the Maghreb – the ‘West’ – are readily included within it. The Orient is also a mosaic of regions – the Balkans, the Levant, the Near East, the Middle East and the Far East – whose boundaries shift with the times. Despite these fluctuations, this concept persists and continues to structure a certain aspect of the geography of knowledge. So much so that in China, at Peking University, a three-part division remained in place until 1983, comprising a department of ‘Western Languages and Literatures’, another for ‘Russian Language and Literature’ and a third covering ‘Eastern Languages and Literatures’. Thus, the concept of the Orient cannot be understood solely in terms of geopolitical fluidity, but also in terms of its crystallisation as a field of study.

Before it became a pejorative term associated with an ‘-ism’ – in this case, ‘Orientalism’ – those who studied the East referred to themselves as Orientalists. Proof of this, amongst other things, is the ‘International Congress of Orientalists’, held annually between 1873 and 1912. But what is the history of this self-designation? How did this sense of community develop, and how did this awareness of belonging to a distinct branch of specialists come about? For some, the East is a single entity requiring encyclopaedic knowledge; for others, the technical nature of mastering the sources necessitates specialisation.

The academic aim of this conference is to highlight the scholar’s explicit and conscious relationship with their subject of study, and to capture the reflexivity of Orientalists – that ‘close, intimate and entirely personal bond they maintain with their work’. Researchers are invited to capture Orientalists in the act of “explaining, as historians, the link between the history one has made and the history that has made you”, to borrow and expand upon the words of Pierre Nora. 

Autobiographies, memoirs, diaries, correspondence, and also book prefaces are potential sources of such traces. They can also be unearthed in the course of a footnote or in the preambles to more elaborate articles. 

We invite you to explore the reflective space of academic Orientalists – philologists, archaeologists, historians, sociologists, anthropologists, linguists – as well as that of Orientalists from other professional backgrounds – publishers, booksellers and librarians. How did those who sought to produce or categorise knowledge about the East navigate this essential back-and-forth between questioning their choice of research topics and maintaining a degree of detachment in order to better construct analytical frameworks ? Did they reflect on the reasons that led them to undertake a particular line of research, publish a particular journal, or establish criteria for classifying a particular collection? Did they situate themselves within a historical context? Did they recognise any social or political determinism? 

Submission guidelines:

If you wish to contribute to this conference, which will take place in Paris on 15 and 16 March 2027, please send by 15 September 2026 to the following address, View e-mail your proposal in English or French, of no more than 1,500 characters, followed by a brief biographical and bibliographical note. Notifications of acceptance will be sent out at the end of September 2027. The working languages of this conference will be English and French.

Organised by: Madalina Vârtejanu-Joubert and Nicolas Pitsos

Scientific Committee: 

Simona Corlan-Ioan (University of Bucharest)

Cristina Ion (National Library of France)

Aleksandra Kolaković (Institute of Political Studies, Belgrade)

Frosa Pejoska-Bouchereau (PLIDAM/Inalco)

Nicolas Pitsos (CREE/Inalco, BULAC)

Madalina Vârtejanu-Joubert (PLIDAM/INALCO)

Jean-Michel Butel (INALCO, IFRAE)