Sacred Orientalism

A Particular Mode of Missionary Ethnographic Thinking and Poetics on Juan González de Mendoza's Chinese Ethnography

Bibliographic Data

ID3232670
AuthorsBo Gao (0000-0003-0962-383X), Gao Bo (0009-0004-7855-0528, Peking University, corresponding author)
Year2024
Volume15
Issue12
Pages1462
Publication date2024-11-30
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueReligions (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2077-1444 • E-ISSN: 2077-1444
PublisherMDPI AG (PUBLISHER • IT)
DOI10.3390/rel15121462
OpenAlexW4404924932
LanguageEN
References cited6

Mendoza's History of the Great Empire of China constitutes a notable contribution to the history of the literary relationship between China and Spain. First published in Rome in 1585, the work has exerted a profound influence on international scholarship over the past four centuries. From the perspective of the evolution of Western perceptions of China, contemporary scholars have primarily assessed this text on the basis of Mendoza's elevation of Europe's admiration of China from a material to a spiritual dimension. This paper introduces a new perspective on Mendoza's significant contribution to the field of Chinese studies. Not only is his work a valuable source of information about China, but it is also a pioneering form of missionary ethnographic writing. This approach, here termed as 'Sacred Orientalism', served to elevate Europe's idealised and sacred imagination of China to new heights. This paper demonstrates, among other things, how Mendoza used his two main reference works, Cruz and Rada, to reach such Sacred Orientalism. Furthermore, this paper also examines the factors that led to the emergence and acceptance of this distinctive mode of writing about China in 16th-century Europe

Art · Ethnography · Literature · Orientalism · Poetics · Poetry · Sociology · Anthropology · Latin American history and culture · Philippine History and Culture

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