Catalogus : Recensies
Recensies
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Anna Gonerko-Frej, Malgorzata Sokól, Joanna Witkowska, Uwe Zagratzki (eds.) Us and Them - Them and Us: Constructions of the Other in Cultural Stereotypes ISBN: 978-3-8322-8421-3 Prijs: 49,80 € / 99,60 SFR |
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| Der Sammelband ist das Ergebnis einer Konferenz über das Thema wie unsere Verbindung zu den »Anderen« unsere Sprache formt, mit einem speziellen Blick auf Stereotype.Der Band ist in vier verschiedene Themen eingeteilt. Der erste Abschnitt über »Sehen und Wahrnehmen« beinhaltet Artikel über die Beziehung zwischen islamischer und polnischer Kunst, Klassenunterschiede in Britannien nach der Industrialisierung und Araber in US Filmen (1894-2000). Valenzen in der Liebeslyrik und Unterschiede zwischen den Geschlechtern sind zwei der Artikel des zweiten Teils >>Lesen und Schreiben«. >>Sprechen und Zusammenwirkung« ist das Thema des dritten Teils, der Artikel über fluchende Frauen, die Anderen in der Übersetzung und Anderssein in Zeiten des ökonomischen Rückgangs beinhaltet. Der vierte Teil des Sammelbandes, >>Lernen und Lehren«, beinhaltet Artikel über interkulturelles Lernen, die Funktion von Stereotypen und endet mit dem Artikel >>Wir und Sie - Wir sind was wir sprechen<<. | |
| Bron: Glunz/Schneider (Hg.) Krieg und Literatur/War and Literature: „Then Horror Came Into Her Eyes“ 2014, S.200 | |
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Anna Gonerko-Frej, Malgorzata Sokól, Joanna Witkowska, Uwe Zagratzki (eds.) Us and Them - Them and Us: Constructions of the Other in Cultural Stereotypes ISBN: 978-3-8322-8421-3 Prijs: 49,80 € / 99,60 SFR |
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Stereotypes, processes of othering and their function in the construction of group identities are a highly important topic, not only in the ongoing boom of postcolonial studies, but also with regard to nationalism, transnationalism, ethnicity, migration, European integration, globalisation, English as a world language, and intercultural communication. The centrality of these issues to contemporary social developments makes them a crucial field of inquiry in the Humanities and Social Sciences. This is also reflected in the volume under review, a massive tome of nearly 700 pages containing the proceedings of a conference which took place at the University of Szczecin, Poland, in May 2009, under the motto "Us and Them-Them and Us. Constructions of the Other in Cultural Stereotypes -Perceptions, Challenges, Meanings". The collection examines stereotypes, othering, and boundary construction from many different angles. English Studies takes centre stage, but there are also perspectives from Cultural Studies, Communication and Media Studies, French and Polish Philology, Turkology, Political Science, and Social Pedagogy. Contributors hail mainly from Poland and Germany, though some arealso based in Russia, France, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Oman, and the USA. A recurrent feature of the discussion is that stereotypes are, on the one band, an inevitable by-product of the human cognitive need for simplification and categorisation, while on the other band they can impede dialogue and foster misunderstandings, hatred, discrimination, inequality, and exclusion. In this collection, such antagonisms and power structures are mainly explored with regard to gender as well to cultural and national groups. Here, most space is given to East/West relations, with a focus on Central and Eastern Europe, the UK, and the USA, although other contexts also make an occasional appearance. Essays explore both auto-and hetero-stereotypes, mainly concentrating on the twentieth and twenty-first century. The collection opens with a brief three-page preface by one of the editors, Uwe Zagratzki, highlighting key features of stereotypes and giving some pointers as to how the study of stereotypes has developed over time in different fields of inquiry. After this, the book plunges immediately in medias res, i.e. the individual case sturlies and theoretical problems discussed by the contributors. Section I, "Seeing and Perceiving", features theoretical reflections and case sturlies of visual culture (film, TV, comics, decorative arts, architecture), popular opinion, politics, law and policing, print journalism, internet fora, marketing and consumer habits. Marija Liudvika Drazdauskiene offers philosophical reflections on elements of modern culture which reinforce the tendency to stereotype. She also discusses the relationship between stereotype and myth. Further general reflections are provided by Charles E. Gannon, who shows " [...] how cultural truths get lost in (re-)translation", illustrated by Western images of Eastern Europe, problems of academic East/West dialogue due to different academic styles, as well as auto-stereotypes and European hetero-stereotypes of the USA. East/West relations are also the focus of Joanna Witkowska´s case study "The other in communist Poland- on anti-American propaganda in socio-cultural weeklies". The role of stereotypes within US-American culture is likewise a recurrent topic: Piotr Zazula charts white American images of noble savagery in the nineteenth and twentieth century, Belgacem Mehdaoui traces continuities in the (mainly negative) stereotyping of Arabs in Hollywood films between 1894 and 2000, and Ryan Dorr shows how the racial hierarchies and stereotypes that pervaded American social reality influenced patterns of othering in the portrayal of extra-terrestrial beings in science fiction films of the 1950s. Dorr also makes some reference to gender stereotypes. Racial stereotypes in Japan are the focus of Kaori Mori´s paper, which traces changing perceptions of racial diversity and racial mixing in relation to national identity. A fascinating paper by Mieste Hotopp-Riecke charts the role of the Tartars in the history (and perception) of Islam in Europe, taking in toponyms, architecture, handicrafts, ornament, writing, and memory culture. Wolfgang K. Hünig´s richly illustrated paper "Stereotypes and invectives in British and German political cartoons of World War I and II" explores the Rezensionen 281 images which the two nations bad of each other at two crucial points of political confrontation. Class (rather than national) stereotypes are the focus of Elke Schuch´s brilliant investigation of the perception of ´chavs´ in post-industrial Britain; whereas Marcin Pedich explores the image of a particular profession, namely "The stereotype of the library and librarians in Polish and American (pop) culture". Section II, "Reading and writing", concentrates on literature. Occupational and class-based stereotypes are further examined in Barbara Braid´s paper on Victorian female servants. At the time, middle-class perspectives othered these servants in terms of both gender and dass; whereas modern neo-Victorian Iiterature attempts to reconstruct these women´s own perspectives, deconstruct stereotypes, and transgress sociallimitations. Critical scrutiny of Victorian notions also features prominently in Anna Kwiatkowska´s reading of E.M. Forster´s Where Angels Fear to Tread as an ironic comment on Victorian cliches about artistic merit and about the relationship between art and life. British images of Germany are analysed in Richard Stinshoffs chapter on Erskine Childers´s play The Riddle of the Sands (1903), which is interesting to read alongside Hünig´s earlier chapter on the World Wars. We return to the USA in Brygida Gasztold´s study on "[ ... ] Jewish New York in the eyes of early twentieth century American writers", where we see both ethnic and class-based othering, and encounter interesting facets of wider American debates on assimilation, multiculturalism, and national identity. An individual migrant´s identity is the focus of Anna Lakowicz-Dopiera´s paper about the diary of the Polish poet Jan Lechon, who moved to the USA in the mid-twentieth century. The Vietnam plays of American playwright David Rabe are analysed in Kurt Müller´s chapter, which centres on race and gender stereotypes in relation to social violence. Uwe Zagratzki examines a recent Native Canadian novel set at the time of World War I: Joseph Boyden´s Three Day Road. It explores relations between Native Canadians, the white Canadian mainstream, and Europe, with regard to culture clashes, Native cultural resilience, and healing. Further, Agata Zawiszewska illuminates the Polish reception of French culture through the inter-war journalism offeminist writer and critic Irena Krzywicka. In addition to these examinations of stereotyping and communication between cultural and national groups, two papers in this section focus on other kinds of boundaries (and boundary-crossings) between groups and individuals. Christopher Whyte examines love poems by Edwin Morgan, Somhairle MacGill-Eain (Sorley MacLean), Luis Cernuda and Marina Tsvetaeva in terms of gender, sexual orientation as well as the shifting relations between author, beloved addressee, and reader. A short story is the focus of Bartosz Cierach´s paper, which analyses narrative strategies, family relationships, and the creation of empathy in Katherine Mansfield´s "Prelude". Section III, "Speaking and Interacting", has a linguistic orientation. Anna Duszak´s theoretical reflections consider the potential of politeness and impoliteness studies for the illumination of us/them-boundaries. She also argues the need to extend politeness studies to non-anglocentric and non-western frameworks, and analyses an example of othering in Polish political discourse. Politeness and impoliteness are also central to Malgorzata Sokol´s study of ´us´/´them´ constructions on an internet forum for small-scale investors on the Polish stock market. Other papers focus on gender stereotypes. Douglas Mark Ponton explores the role which images of femininity played in the press conference that followed Margaret Thatcher´s election as Conservative Party leader in 1975. Victoria Almlieheva examines "Gender stereotypes in the language of advertising in French magazines", and Marta Dynel illuminates the subversion of gender stereotypes in two contemporary Polish comedy films, Lejdis and Testosteron. Dorota Guttfeld scrutinises the representation of linguistic otherness (among different human groups, animals, and non-terrestrial life forms) in fantasy and science fiction, in the original texts by anglophone authors, and in translations of these texts into other languages, notably Polish. Katarzyna Molek-Kozakowska analyses stereotypes of Russia in the British and American press coverage of the Georgian crisis in 2008. Further Western stereotypes of ´the East´ in print journalism are explored in Agnieszka Sowinska´s chapter on the way in which Poland and Polish economic migrants were portrayed in The Economist from 2005 to 2007. Theories of metaphor (as developed by George Lakoff and others) play an important role here, as they do in Magdalena Zyga´s paper on the play Everything Must Go by anglophone Welsh writer Patrick Jones. Here, the construction and transgresswn of boundanes between ´us´ and ´them´ is mainly related to economic or political hierarchies and the perspective of the marginalised. Judith Bündgens-Kosten explores evaluative responses by teachers to Afr1can-American Vernacular Enghsh in terms of attitude, ambivalence, and stereotypes about speakers of the smd variety. This already anticipates some concerns of Section IV, "Learning and teaching", where educational matters take centre stage. Laurenz Volkmann opens with key theoretical reflections "On the nature and functwn of stereotypes in intercultural learning". Anke Fedrowitz likewise offers general reflections on intercultural learning, followed by practical examples from school life and a few teaching suggestions. Various papers criticise an anglophone or western bias in prevalent approaches to intercultural learning and the teaching of English as a foreign language. Anna Linka does so w1th regard to international schools, whose (usually) western bias hinders the development of a more genuinely global intercultural competence. Agnieszka Dzieciol cites different educational and cultural norms as a reason why Pohsh students often have problems with western-style communicative approaches in language teaching. Anna Gonerko-Frej likewise criticises the disregard for Polish traditions and needs in current EFL teaching in Poland, which is biased towards native-speaker teachers and the cultures of anglophone countries. Robert McLaughlin identifies similar problems elsewhere: although he mainly draws on the situation at German universities, he also makes a more general argument against native-speaker-based normativity in EFL teaching. The latter does not always reflect the communicative needs of students, who Rezensionen 283 might mainly use English as a global lingua franca to communicate with people from outside the Anglo-American cultural sphere. The wide thematic and methodical range of this collection is probably its greatest strength, making it a very useful, inspiring and thought-provoking resource for any scholar or student interested in the study of stereotypes and boundary constructions. The interdisciplinary and interlingual approach transcends the limits within which the study of these issues often operates, for mstance within postcolonial English Studies, where languages other than English and countries which have never belonged to the British Empire are usually neglected, so that opportunities for more wide-ranging comparative approaches are frequently lost. The present book offers welcome additional perspectives. Despite the general usefulness of this volume, the papers are of somewhat variable quality. While many of them are well-researched and convincing, others seem a little too cursory and would have profited from greater logical stringency or an extension of scope. The book would also have benefitted from more rigorous editing. Inconsistent and incomplete bibliographies as well as an abundance of typographical, formatting and language mistakes, can distract the reader from the contents. The retention of ´non-native´ grammar and syntax might be justified with reference to some contributors´ theoretical arguments against normativity and does not usually prevent comprehension. Nonetheless, readers from different linguistic backgrounds might find this distracting, and in a few passages it actually does render the argument hard to follow. Besides, some details valid at the time of writing and submitting should have been updated before the book´s publication. It would also have been helpful if the editors had provided a more substantial introduction surveying key definitions, theories and approaches to stereotypes, othering, and us/them-boundaries which have been offered by the different disciplines. However, even as it is, the volume does form a very helpful compendium; and it will be interesting to see the results of further conferences in this Szczecin series. The 2009 conference, which forms the basis of the present collection, was followed by a second symposium in September 2011 ("Who is ´us´ and who is ´them´ after 9/11 -Reflections on Language, Culture and Literature in Times of Ideological Clashes"), which will also result in a proceedings volume. A third conference is planned for 2013. Silke Stroh Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster |
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| Bron: Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik, AAA Band 37 (2012) Heft 2 | |
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