Paper short abstract

In my presentation I shall analyze the concept of Orientalism in Portuguese 16th century expansion chronicles. I will pay a specific focus on the way the Other is represented in Fernão Lopes de Castanheda's, João de Barros' and Gaspar Correia's texts on India .

Paper long abstract

Fernão Lopes de Castanheda's, João de Barros' and Gaspar Correia's Expansion chronicles were written in the first half of the 16th century. These chronicles depict the Portuguese presence in Asia, namely in India, in order to show how powerful this emergent empire was. One of its main vectors is the description of the contacts with the new spaces under Portuguese rule. As I will try show these descriptions devote specific attention to the representation of the Other. My main focus will be thus on "Portuguese imperial gaze" in the first half of the 16th century and on the way it helped to build the notion of Orientalism.