Book excerpt: Queer Exoticism: Examining the Queer Exotic Within joins the growing bibliography of queer postcolonial and queer race studies. The authors assembled here examine the queer tendency to visit decidedly different and unusual subjects of desire in an effort, partially at least, to find oneself. The identity quest that is inherent in the search for the exotic often results in something quite the opposite of foreign since it forms and articulates that which is ourselves. Thus experiencing the exotic becomes a path to self-knowledge, not unlike the work of therapy wherein the examination of elements that appear at first peculiar or unfamiliar end up opening channels to self-discovery. In this way, the gaze outward turns inward to exhibit an inner exoticism that, at times, is at once, always and already, inner and outer. These essays also focus on various questions of imperialism, race, exoticism, along with other aspects of the exotic. Going beyond Said’s sense of orientalism, this volume examines the otherness of oneself and the notion of desire for the Other as something different from purely an act of domination and colonization, thereby refusing perceptions of ascendancy. Insomuch as they represent various geographic and cultural groups, the studies lend themselves to a variety of different methodologies and analytical approaches.