The Humanities Centre invites submissions for a symposium which will use Marco Polo's encounter with the East as a touchstone for analyzing western views of the East and vice-versa. Recent investigations into East-West relations have tended to center on the Near and Middle East, following the pattern of Edward Said's Orientalism, or on the Indian sub-continent, in keeping with post-colonial interventions. This event seeks to shift the focus slightly, toward East-West encounters experienced along the Silk Road and in regions even more "Oriental."

Submissions should address one of the following themes: the textual history of Marco Polo's Travels and its relationship to other western travel literature; medieval and early modern oriental perspectives on Europe and Christendom (Chinese, south-east Asian, and Arabic); ethnographic and historical approaches to the nexus of western and eastern culture along the Silk Road. Graduate student submissions are welcomed.