France/China: Intercultural Imaginings

China has long been an object of fascination for the French, who celebrated theirannee de la Chine in 2004. Symptomatic of that fascination are the movements into China made by groups as diverse as the Jesuits, who arrived inL'Empire du Milieu in the late seventeenth century, and theTel Quel intellectuals, whose will to political pilgrimage took them to the People's Republic in 1974. Symptomatic, too, are the narrative and visual representations of China offered by such as Pierre Loti, Vict...