<DIV>The “Other”—source of fear and fascination; emblem of difference demonized and romanticized. Theories of alterity and cultural diversity abound in the contemporary academic landscape. Victor Segalen's early attempt to theorize the exotic is a crucial reference point for all discussions of alterity, diversity, and ethnicity.<BR> Written over the course of fourteen years between 1904 and 1918, at the height of the age of imperialism, <I>Essay on Exoticism</I> encompasses Segalen's attempts to define “true Exoticism.” This concept, he hoped, would not only replace nineteenth-century notions of exoticism that he considered tawdry and romantic, but also redirect his contemporaries' propensity to reduce the exotic to the “colonial.” His critique envisions a mechanism that appreciates cultural difference—which it posits as an aesthetic and ontological value—rather than assimilating it: “Exoticism's power is nothing other than the ability to conceive otherwise,” he writes.<br> Segalen's pioneering work on otherness anticipates and informs much of the current postcolonial critique of colonial discourse. As such <I>Essay on Exoticism</I> is essential reading for both cultural theorists or those with an interest in the politics of difference and diversity.<br></div>