The talk explores the compelling tension between the rise of the modern world-system and the emergence of modern anti-systemic aesthetics. International trade during the 17th- and 18th-centuries catalyzed a revolution in European sensibility, which in turn spurred innovations in literary and cultural production. The parallel yet distinct phenomena of Chinoiserie and Turquerie illustrate this dynamic in strikingly analogous ways. While both phenomena involve problematic forms of cultural appropriation, they simultaneously encapsulate the modern ethos of intellectual “shapeshifting”— a fluid engagement with cultural hybridity and identity reimagination. Through a reading of key examples — such as Oriental tales set in the Ottoman Empire and China, Watteau’s Chinese cabinet, and the fascination with images of Turks in 17th-century and 18th-century France and Italy — this talk highlights the playful yet profound experimentation with cultural amalgamation and identity transformation that characterized the period. The shapeshifting aesthetics nurtured ironically by the modern world-system represents an underappreciated form of anti-hegemonic movement. It laid the groundwork for later cultural pluralism, contributing to the chaotic yet rhythmic evolution of the world-system toward multipolarity.

Wen Jin is Professor of Comparative Literature at East China Normal University, chair of the Department of Comparative Literature in the School of International Chinese Studies. Her first monograph, Pluralist Universalism: An Asian Americanist Critique of U.S. and Chinese Multiculturalisms (Ohio State Univ Press, 2012), provides comparative readings of American, Chinese, and Chinese American fiction. Her second study, Age of Feeling (ECNU Press, 2024, in Chinese), deals with theories and representations of feelings during the long 18th-century. She has published essays in PMLA, Journal for Eighteenth-century Studies, American Quarterly, Contemporary Literature, Critique, Journal of Transnational American Studies, Modern Chinese Literature and Culture, Journal of Narrative Technique, Amerasia Journal, and collected volumes. She is on the international editorial board of The International Journal of Cultural Studies.

Introduction by Arif Camoglu, Assistant Professor of Literature at NYU Shanghai.