Duke Professor Srinivas Aravamudan revealed how Oriental tales, pseudo-ethnographies, sexual fantasies, and political satires took Europe by storm during the eighteenth century. Naming this body of fiction Enlightenment Orientalism, he posed a range of urgent questions that uncover the interdependence of Oriental tales and domestic fiction, thereby challenging standard scholarly narratives about the rise of the novel.  A sophisticated reinterpretation of the history of the novel, Enlightenment Orientalism is sure to be welcomed as a landmark work in eighteenth-century studies.

This panel discussion included Roberto Dainotto, Professor of Romance Studies & Italian Studies at Duke; Madeleine Dobie, Associate Professor of French at Columbia University; Fredric Jameson, Professor of the Program in Literature at Duke University; Charlotte S Sussman, Associate Professor of English at Duke; and William B. Warner, Professor of English and the Director of the Early Modern Center at the University of California, Santa Barbara.