ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the two most charismatic speakers at the event, Swami Vivekananda and Dharmapala, who were described as 'the most impressive figures of the Parliament'. As media reports and personal testimony make clear, their popular appeal was registered mainly by white Christian women. 'Great crowds of people', one journalist noted, the most of whom were women, pressed around the doors leading to the Hall of Columbus an hour before the time stated for opening the afternoon session, for it had been announced that Swami Vivekananda, the popular Hindoo monk who looks so much like McCullough's Othello, was to speak. Like his Shakespearean counterpart's, Swami Vivekananda's erotic allure crossed racial borders. Cornelia Conger, the granddaughter of Swami Vivekananda's official hosts during the parliament, recounted that he was 'such a dynamic and attractive personality that many women were quite swept away by him and made every effort by flattery to gain his interest'.
