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243 Notes Unless otherwise indicated, all translations into English are my own. Introduction 1. The travelogue is based on one of the world’s first scientific expeditions. It was initiated by the Academy of Science at Göttingen University, financed by King Frederik V of Denmark, and consisted of six members: the philologist Christian von Haven, the physician Christian Carl Cramer, the botanist Peter Forsskål, the servant Berggren, the illustrator Baurenfeind, and the physicist and mathematician Niebuhr. The expedition left Copenhagen in 1761. Within a couple of years everybody had died except Niebuhr. Niebuhr returned to Copenhagen in 1767, and his travel depictions were published in three volumes in 1774, 1778, and 1837 (posthumously). They were written in German and translated into English, French, Dutch, and now also Danish. For more information on the journey and the travelogues, see Michael Harbsmeier’s introduction to Carsten Niebuhr, Rejsebeskrivelse fra Arabien og andre omkringliggende lande, 9–32. 2. In his traveling practice and writing style, Carsten Niebuhr is recognized for his honesty and accuracy, both in his own times and today.” Frits Andersen, “Felix Arabia.” A year and a half later, when the second translated volume was published, Andersen repeats these points in his review, this time suggesting that the travelogue become part of the obligatory Danish literary canon in school. As a unique and ideal figure in the history of travel literature and ethnography, Niebuhr ought to “be included in the canon . . . assigned the same status as Hans Christian Andersen, whose travels were but excursions focusing on the author himself more than the world in which he lived.” Andersen, “Ørkenspejlinger.” 3. Bredal, “Hos araberne.” 4. Bredal similarly insists that Niebuhr’s travelogue may well be the best place to begin for those wishing to understand Islamic people and their culture. His review celebrates Niebuhr’s Enlightenment spirit that led the scientist to write straightforwardly, without prejudice, and without generalizations. Ibid. 5. Pratt, Imperial Eyes, 4. 6. See, for instance, Billie Melman and Paul Fussell, who cover the periods leading up to and following World War I, respectively. Melman, Women’s Orients, and Paul Fussell, Abroad. 7. Ryall, Odyssevs i skjørt, 17. 8. Like Pratt, Said views travelogues as reinforcing Europe’s political power. According to him, imaginative and travel literature “strengthened the divisions established by 244 NOTES TO PART I Orientalists between the various geographical, temporal, and racial departments of the Orient . . . For the Islamic Orient this literature is especially rich and makes a significant contribution to building the Orientalist discourse” (99). 9. See Bhabha, “The Commitment to Theory.” 10. In this equation then, there are three elements: (1) Scandinavia as European periphery; (2) old empires, especially England and France, as European center and metropolis; and (3) non-European countries as the cultural Other. The relationship between the national Self and the non-European Other is thus not a direct relationship, but rather one that is, to a large extent, mediated through the European center. This is a model for which I also argue in Nordic Orientalism. 11. Eriksen, “Been There, Seen This.” 12. Admittedly, my own study, written in English rather than a Scandinavian language , also constitutes an autoethnographic text. “The Modern Breakthrough” is the name given to the movement of naturalism and debate that replaced romanticism in nineteenth-century Scandinavian literature. Authors during the Modern Breakthrough rebelled against tradition, wrote socially and politically engaged literature, and expressed freer views regarding sexuality and religion as well as a greater interest in scientific developments such as Darwinism. 13. All are Western, except for Ma Jian’s Red Dust: A Path through China (2002). 14. Cf. Hans Hauge’s linking postcolonialism to postnationalism: “Postcolonialism . . . makes it possible for us to view the Nordic, literary tradition in a new, critical and different way, i.e., at least in a postnational way.” Hauge, Post-Danmark, 161. 15. Adams, Travel Literature and the Evolution of the Novel, 283–84. 16. Carr, “Modernism and Travel (1880–1940),” 74. 17. While Bakhtin relates the birth of the novel to the classical high genres—the epic in particular—Percy G. Adams emphasizes its relation to travel literature. For instance, Don Quixote, which serves as Bakhtin’s point of departure, may well be read as travel literature. 18. According to Horace Engdahl, publishers do not like hybrid forms: “Consequently , one often places the label novel on something that is not a novel so that it will sell.” Modernismen er død, Feb. 20–24, 2004. 19. American...

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