Introduction: Failures East and West – Cultural Encounters between East Asia and Europe

Abstract

The introduction maps out the field of East-West encounters with a particular focus on failure in such encounters. It defines crucial terms (such as failure and encounter) and locates the collection of essays in the emerging field of failure studies. Furthermore, it reflects on how to develop a theory of failure, and discusses which questions a study of failures in literature and cultural encounters needs to address. It suggests that failure must be understood as constructed, as something that is not inherent in an event but attributed to it. Failure does not exist as an objective category or a simple fact of life, but only comes into existence when something – an event, a person, an entity or idea – is labelled as such. It is, in other words, essentially performative in nature. The introduction suggests that we need to look more closely at the reasons why events are labelled failures, and to what effect. The introduction concludes by providing a brief synopsis of the individual essays of the volume.