The Paris Universal Expositions of 1867, 1889 and 1900 turned out to be such a
far-reaching event that it involved the Orient itself. There were numerous illustrious
Arabs and intellectuals who did not want to miss the unique opportunity of visiting
these exhibitions. Many of the Arab intellectuals in question left first-hand accounts of
their experience. These nineteenth-century works, which we can insert into the category
of travel literature, revisit and re-enact the tradition of the riḥla (journey) according to
the new needs of Arab society. Modulated according to the universal structure of the
journey – departure, transit, arrival –, the texts highlight the various modes by which an
encounter with the ‘other’ came about and contributed to forming the consciousness of
a collective identity. The Exposition, therefore, as a destination for the Arab traveler – a traveler who, in this abstract and transient ‘place’, lives a dual experience, enraptured,
on the one hand, by the phantasmagoric atmosphere of the event, and on the other,
fascinated by the ephemeral aspect of the representation that it gives of his country –
arouses a certain ‘effect of estrangement’ which, however, soon dissolves like the pavilions
of the Exposition itself, to leave room for the dominant view which is the image that the
West was constructing of the East.
