Europe découvre l'Afrique noire inconnue
Europe discovers Black Africa. A Study of the construction of the Image of the Other and of the New European Identity in the 19th Century

Summary/Abstract: Europe discovered Black Africa gradually during the nineteenth century. In the beginning, sciences were more interested in the topic; eventually (and gradually) politics took over. The representations of this different kind of space also changed throughout the century, but, at a closer look, one can identify patterns and timeless archetypes. The people “discovering” Black Africa din not describe it empirically but appropriated and re/used their own phantasms and pre-existing prejudices with which they unlocked the strangeness of the reality they encountered. Yet again, imaginary representations were more powerful than reality.

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