Looking «East»: women’s travel writings in early 20th-century Bengal
This article analyses accounts of travels to Asia written by Bengali women in the early
20th century, a period when there was an immense intellectual curiosity about Asia in colonial India.
Japan’s victory in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904 was widely interpreted as a victory over Western
hegemony in Asia. The notion of a pan-Asian identity based on a shared history and cultural heritage
was debated and popularized in the Bengal public sphere. Together with this, there was also a