Otherness

In this paper I discuss in a critical manner what I believe to be some of the more interesting contributions of Anthony Steinbock’s book Home and Beyond: Generative Phenomenology after Husserl. I will thus refer mainly to his clarification of the constitution of familiar and alien objects or states of affairs through appropriation and transgression. In connection with this I will try to put forward some of the advantages and implications of a phenomenological approach to the problem of historicity in terms of generativity.  However, I will also discuss some of the limitations and problems of Steinbock’s approach. I believe that most if not all of these problems are related to his understanding of the relationship between static, genetic and generative phenomenological methods. Therefore I will devote some lines to discuss this issue and to rethink some of Steinbock’s main theses under the light of another way of understanding the relationship between these methods as well as the task of the philosophical inquiry proposed by phenomenology.

This paper was presented during the first Rubenianum Work-in-Progress Workshop organised the 20 february 20.

The purpose of this paper is to present my initial hypotheses for answering the question of the role of exoticism in the expression of individuality in the 17th and 18th centuries. Through painted portraits with various exotic objects (porcelain, Persian carpets, oriental costumes, etc.) I will question the aesthetic, social and cultural functions of these objects. The dialectic of reality/representation will also be considered.

This work studies the use of disinformation to construct an image of otherness through the internet. We applied a content analysis methodology to the 161 racist, xenophobic or Islamophobic fake news pieces that were discredited in 2020 by the four Spanish information verification media entities accredited by the International Fact-Checking Network: Maldita.es, Newtral, Efe Verifica and Verificat. The results show that the most commonly used formats were image and video, that disinformation was most often based on taking information out of context and deception, and that the source could not be identified. The most shared characteristics associated otherness with receiving aid, violence and illegal immigration. The most commonly used images were photographs, which mostly showed people in a general manner (not individually). Despite this, disinformation was * This research has been carried out in the framework of the project entitled “Strategies, agendas and discourse in electoral cyb...

This work assesses the representation of the Ainu people through the early travelogues made in Japan during the 1910s, focusing on those made by Benjamin Brodsky. Considering filmic representation of the Ainu people in relation to their social context, the analysis reveals how these images projected a deceptive ethnicity belonging to a time prior to the moment they were filmed. Filmmakers created an imagery of the “primitive Ainu” aimed at attracting a Western audience by showing an exoticism of a cultural and geographically distant people. These images projected ahistorical views of the Ainu, concealing their adaptation to modern life and assimilation to the Japanese culture and way of life. A critical approach to these captivating images reveals the premeditated construction of Ainu ethnicity and casts doubt on the validity of these moving images as a social witness.

Tratando de buscar la mejor forma de exponer la presente apuesta educativa, me atreveré a entrar en contacto con la experiencia, a resurgir, una vez más, en esta existencia acogiendo lo que acontece en mi tránsito como maestra. Para ello pondré en diálogo los referentes teóricos de mi proyecto de investigación fenomenológica en torno a una anécdota personal que será narrada por partes que aparecen al iniciar cada apartado del presente capítulo y, en la cual, se deconstruye lo que he pensado, lo que he sentido, lo que he dicho, lo que he hecho y lo que he sido, con el fin de brindar otros horizontes de sentido a la vocación del ser maestro.

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Asians have been othered in American society due to racism and xenophobia because some view them as responsible (as individuals or as a community) for causing and spreading the virus. In response to the nationwide surge of anti-Asian hate crimes, the author, an Asian American preacher, suggests a revitalization of ren (仁), the foundational concept of the collectivist culture of East (Southeast) Asian society and also the essence of Confucianism, as an indigenous homiletical voice. The paper explores the distinctive conception of otherness-in particular, the heart of compassion (惻隱之心, ceyin zhi xin) and righteousness (義, yi)-in ren as an alternative concept for mitigating controversial features of Levinas's ethical project. Further, the author proposes revitalizing ren in preaching so that the praxis of compassion and resistance combines with the dynamic of biblical lament as a homiletical strategy.

Resumen. La presente investigación parte de la certeza de que, dentro de la visión general, de carácter europeizante e imperialista, que el sujeto colonial europeo tiene de la alteridad americana, existen toda una serie de profundas diferencias políticas, económicas, culturales o religiosas en la visión con la que los exploradores pertenecientes a diversas naciones europeas construyeron al “otro” indígena. Es desde esta certeza que el análisis contrastivo de la otredad en las crónicas de Antonio de Berrío y Walter Ralegh, quienes entraron en contacto con las mismas poblaciones nativas del Orinoco y Guayana en un mismo periodo de tiempo (últimas décadas del s. XVI), se erige como un caso de estudio paradigmático que puede apuntar a nuevas investigaciones en torno a las variaciones intraeuropeas en la construcción de la alteridad.
Palabras clave: Crónicas de Indias; otredad; sujeto colonial; visión; Antonio de Berrío; Walter Ralegh.

Abstract. This research study results from the conviction that, within the broad Europeanising and imperialist vision from which the European colonial subject represents American otherness, there are a number of considerable political, economic, cultural or religious differences between the visions of those explorers coming from different European countries. From this conviction, a contrastive analysis of otherness in the chronicles of Antonio de Berrío and Walter Ralegh, who made contact with the same native societies in Orinoco and Guiana during the same period of time (last decades of the 16th century), stands as a paradigmatic case study which may be the basis for new research works about intra-European constructions of otherness.
Keywords: Chronicles of the Indies; otherness; colonial subject; vision; Antonio de Berrío; Walter Ralegh.

This article questions how marginalised and emerging identities are negotiated in a particular type of musical collaboration: that between sean nós singers (the ‘traditional voice’) and composers of contemporary music in Ireland.

Drawing on Fabian Holt’s (2008) concept of locating marginalised musics ‘in-between’ cultural categories and genres (what he terms ‘in-between poetics’), and exploring both the socio-historical trajectory and development of sean nós singing and of contemporary music in Ireland using specific musical examples, I will examine what bringing emerging and marginalised voices to the fore might mean for previous conceptions of Irish musical identity. I argue that it is within these ‘in-between’ spaces that musical collaborations occur and that there is room for a pattern of marginality to emerge, one in which the ‘hidden’ or marginal voice of sean nós finds a new space and expression within a genre which has remained on the periphery of Irish musical culture. The concept of an ‘in-betweenness’ offers a conceptual framework in which music at the borders or boundaries of its own tradition or practice can find new ways to mediate its marginality and ‘otherness’ and to negotiate musical identity. Thus, marginality as a concept functions creatively within these collaborations, finding a space for a new or ‘emerging’ voice to be articulated in the process.

Furthermore, I explore how the relationship between particular musical collaborations and identity in Ireland can contribute new perspectives to musicology in terms of revising existing issues within the discipline in relation to the theoretical, linguistic and descriptive frameworks used to analyse and explain the meaning of this music from an identity perspective.

To cite: Katarzyna Górak-Sosnowska, Marta Pachocka, Inventing the Muslim Other in Poland (and Why Does it Differ from Western Europe), in: Muslim Minorities and the Refugee Crisis in Europe, eds. Katarzyna Górak-Sosnowska, Jan Misiuna, Marta Pachocka, SGH Publishing House, Warsaw 2019.

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to discuss how the Muslim Other has been invented and still is in contemporary Poland. We argue that it is framed into a different narrative and ‘logic’ than in the case of many Western European countries. While Poles also need their Muslim ‘enemy’, they use him or her not only to strengthen their national identity, but also to oppose the very idea of Europe from within.

Keywords: Poland, Central and Eastern Europe, Western Europe, islamophobia, otherness, Other, Muslim

El presente trabajo tiene como objeto un análisis de la obra The Taming of the Shrew de William Shakespeare poniendo énfasis en las relaciones de alteridad que se manifiestan entre los personajes, especialmente el que existe entre las hermanas Katherine y Bianca. La condición de outsider entre los personajes femeninos en las piezas de Shakespeare, según Marianne Novy, suele no ser fija, y eso se ve reflejado tanto en Katherine como en Bianca. Lo que este trabajo se propone es dejar de manifiesto que ese movimiento, de outsider a insider o viceversa, es performativo, es decir, que es el resultado de las acciones y no parte de la esencia, de la condición ontológica de los personajes.

Dans The Tempest de W. Shakespeare, Foe de J.M. Coetzee et Solaris de S. Lem, l’écriture de l’altérité est liée à celle de l’insularité. Caliban et Friday sont des figures de l’autochtonie représentatives de l’Autre colonial ; la planète Solaris, à la fois lieu et personnage, ailleurs et autre, permet d’explorer ce lien entre l’altérité et l’insularité. L’éloignement et la clôture spatiale de l’île dessinent une épistémologie de l’altérité qui est toujours pensée via ce modèle spatiale — et qui pose la question de la possibilité de la rencontre. Il s’agit dans ce mémoire d’explorer les représentations de l’autre et leurs enjeux poétiques, éthiques et épistémologiques.

Marginal places do not usually appear in pictures. Their residents have historically been deprived of representation, because they do not fit in the ideal profile of ordinary citizens. Post-modern ethnography, however, argues that the cultural other has always been within ourselves, so many people –especially artists– have understood that those marginal perspectives must be included in any work attempting to address the urban experience in all its complexity and plurality. This is the reason why many filmmakers have lately become interested in what I call places of otherness: marginal areas in which cultural others, such as immigrants, refugees, homeless, ethnic minorities and other excluded groups, can feel at home in a foreign city. This essay aims to discuss the strategies of representation of such kind of places in a particular case study: Foreign Parts (Véréna Paravel & J. P. Sniadecki, 2010), a documentary produced at Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab that depicts the everyday life in an already disappeared junkyard in Queens, New York. In this film, the documentary makers embrace a sensory approach based on intersubjectivity to give voice and visibility to the residents of that place, thus updating the politics of representation of ethnographic film and participatory documentary.

Villarmea Álvarez, Iván. 2018. Places of Otherness. Strategies of Urban Representation in 'Foreign Parts'. The Apollonian 5, 124-131.

" Many Times " , é uma instalação de Juan Muñoz apresentada pela primeira vez em 1999. Como descreve o catálogo da Retrospectiva de Serralves em 2008: é uma obra composta por uma centena de figuras, vestidas de forma idêntica e com feições semelhantes, todas modeladas a partir de um busto que Muñoz descobriu num hotel, uma cabeça art noveau em cerâmica, com feições asiáticas. Reunidas aos pares ou em pequenos círculos e muitas vezes aparentemente mergulhadas em conversa, elas formam uma multidão densa, em interação. Avaliando-se umas às outras e reagindo entre si, por vezes ignorando-se mutuamente, entre elas parecem desenrolar-se inumeráveis dramas. O espaço vazio da galeria que rodeia e separa as figuras individuais está carregado com a tensão criada pelo grupo. Nós, espectadores (?) caminhamos por entre os grupos, cruzamo-nos com uma ou duas figuras que parecem interagir connosco, ou podemos, quase " escutar as conversas " dos grupos mais fechados no seu próprio círculo. A dimensão " humana " das estátuas é aceite pelo espectador " sem reservas " , apesar de não terem " pés " , de estarem de " pés enterrados " no espaço da instalação, da sua estatura ser abaixo da estatura de um adulto. Os rostos são sorridentes e levam-nos também a sorrir, a devolver-lhes o sorriso! A imediata sensação física de bem-estar que provocam também nos colhe de surpresa e conduz a uma estranheza, que não se consegue fazer desaparecer: a semelhança daquelas figuras com outras; os soldados de terracota chineses.

En el canon de la literatura armenia predominan los nombres masculinos y, tradicionalmente, las obras de las escritoras mujeres han sido totalmente ignoradas. Tan dramática es la cuestión de la invisibilidad de las mujeres que se han dedicado a la escritura en Armenia que, cuando se pregunta sobre la existencia de autoras armenias a ciudadanos y ciudadanas del país, son muy pocos los que pueden mencionar algunos nombres. En los programas de filología armenia no aparecen las mujeres escritoras armenias así como tampoco se recomienda la lectura de sus obras por el hecho de no considerarse “buena literatura”. Dado que no tienen un espacio en la literatura nacional, el objetivo de este trabajo es vindicar y reavivar la figura de una de las autoras más prolíficas: Zabel Yessayan. De entre todas las autoras armenias, Yessayan merece particular atención no sólo por el hecho de ser una de las primeras escritoras mujeres sino también porque ella tomó una parte activa en la construcción de su “patria”. De ahí que la haya elegido para este trabajo, que se plantea como fase inicial de un estudio más amplio sobre autoras armenias. Sin embargo, aunque Yessayan fue una luchadora y tuvo una vida literaria fecunda, su poderosa voz es una de las silenciadas voces literarias, tanto de manera literal como metafórica. En consecuencia, este trabajo de investigación es un estudio de la figura y la obra de esta autora singular que parece necesario. El estudio se vehicula mediante tres temas clave que articulan la figura y la obra de Yessayan y las dotan de sentido, y que pueden facilitar su comprensión desde Armenia pero también desde contextos distintos, como el nuestro. Estos conceptos son los de censura, otredad, y feminismo.

The paper deals with the image of the Phrygians as presented by the ancient authors and points to its two main traits in the classical literature: the Phrygians’ cowardice and ‘natural inclination’ towards servile status. The author of the article suggests that both characteristics can be found mostly in certain genres of literature (i.e. drama, poetry and orations) and are closely connected to the tradition that identifies Phrygians with Trojans. The inherent duality of the discussed image is also examined, as well as the similarities and differences in ancient perception of the Phrygians and other peoples of Asia Minor.

English:

The article tries to analyze gamers as a social group in Poland. That group has been stigmatized and partly excluded, which led to it's withdrawal to privacy and lack of presence in public. Author attempts to analyze the change in perception of gamers in public, and ponders the circumstances that led gamer scene to shift from hobbists to partly professionals. He analyses the profit possibilities that emerged in MMOs and e-sports with the expansion of Internet. That leads him to conclussion that e-sports are becoming professional sports now, that allows gamers to fully fulfill themselves and their goals in public space.

Polish:

Przedmiotem refleksji artykułu jest grupa graczy komputerowych. Byli oni w Polsce przez długi czas stygmatyzowani i częściowo wykluczeni. To prowadziło do wycofania z przestrzeni publicznej i zamknięcia w kreowanych prywatnie enklawach. Autor stara się przeanalizować zmianę jej postrzegania i towarzyszące temu okoliczności. W swoich rozważaniach skupia się na zjawisku profesjonalizacji świata gier. Rozważa możliwości zarobkowe i zmiany statusu społecznego, jakie w dwóch rodzajach gier sieciowych: MMO i e-sport otwarło rozpowszechnienie Internetu i rozwój popkultury. To prowadzi go do konkluzji, że e-sport zaczyna przypominać profesjonalny sport, co z kolei umożliwia emancypację graczom komputerowym i pełną realizację swoich celów w przestrzeni publicznej.

By offering fluent, accurate translations of extracts and fragments from a wide assortment of  ancient texts, this volume allows a comprehensive overview of ancient Greek and Roman  concepts of "otherness", as well as Greek and Roman views of non-Greeks and non-Romans. A general introduction, thorough annotation, maps, a select bibliography, and an index are also included.

There has been increasing criticism of mainstream writers who create characters from marginalised cultural backgrounds different to their own, especially when those characters are written from the first-person perspective. This can be seen as a kind of ventriloquism (Couser 1998), stereotypical and racist characterisation (Leane 2016), and lead to further oppression since the privileged person is the one who speaks rather than the group represented (Alcoff 1991). At the same time, writing that explores the migration story of people from refugee backgrounds, written by writers from those backgrounds as well as writers who have not had those experiences, has become increasingly more common (see Menchu 1984; Nazer & Lewis 2003; Eggers 2006;
Cleave 2008; de Kretser 2012; Al Muderis & Weaver 2014). But there is little work on the difference between stories that have been constructed with consultation of the people represented and those that have not. A look into how novels of this kind are written can contribute to the debate of writing the other. In order to explore this concept, I wrote a novel manuscript about the everyday lives of four characters from refugee backgrounds in three drafts. The first was produced through fieldwork and observation, the second after interviews and the third through feedback. This paper compares the first two drafts of the manuscript. It suggests that prior to interviews and self-reflection, the writing followed the dominant narrative told about refugees, referred to here as ‘the national story’ (Birch 2013), which played up victimhood and played down racism. Interviews and reflection on instances of cultural misappropriation produced a story that began to counter to this narrative. This suggests that when the people represented are not involved in the writing process, the national story dramatically influences the ways in which the characters are written.

"Madonna is perhaps one of the most consistently transgressive and self-transforming artists of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The recent release of two critically acclaimed and best-selling albums and a sold-out world tour have renewed media and academic interest in the artist. Madonna presents a set of strikingly new challenges to cultural analysis, and new developments in Gender, Queer and Ethnic studies have shed more light on her entire oeuvre. Whilst the contributors do refer to classic cultural theorists such as Baudrillard, Žižek, Foucault and Barthes, new theoretical approaches to Madonna's work feature prominently. In view of this, the present volume offers new perspectives on Madonna's work to date, addressing her configurations of race, gender and sex(uality) and with special emphasis on her resurrection after the Sex backlash in the early 1990s.

The collection focuses on new Madonna-related topics such as Hinduism, Judaism, Japanese culture, All-American culture, Queer culture, Motherhood and her influence on newer 'girl acts' such as the Spice Girls and Britney Spears. The book explores the themes of gender, sexuality, ethnicity and celebrity consumption through the lens of Madonna's songs, videos and shows. An international array of scholars portrays Madonna's popularisation of the notion that identity is not fixed and can be continuously rearranged and revamped. The book should have wide appeal for all those concerned with gender studies, cultural studies, ethnic studies, lesbian and gay musicology as well as popular music studies."

The reconquest of Oran by Spanish Army, ordered by Philip V in 1732, was essential in the articulation of its image of power. The aim of this research is to reconstruct, with a diachronic approach, the (anti)Islamic imagery of the Spanish campaigns in Algeria during the Early Modern period, and the making of the new The conquest of Oran’s image.

As an “icon” in mainstream popular culture, Lady Gaga has imbued a new standard of super stardom as a performance artist and transformative fashionista in today’s generation and thus challenged orthodoxy. Her interpretation and expression of Christianity, in particular, places the iconic goddess under the critical spotlight of the religious community. Born a Roman Catholic, Lady Gaga experienced a series of life-changing events that has brought her to integrate risky biblical references into her lyrics. Her music is only one perspective, however, upon which this can be analyzed: her fashion, often unpredictable yet impressive, is equally influenced by her religious roots and ideas. The art of Lady Gaga’s music and fashion brings together new meaning both insightful and controversial to the Christian body, which elicits a response to examine and criticize the superstar’s interpretive messages. As a result, subjective interpretations of those references lie at the heart of Christian argument as well as Lady Gaga’s.

NW Italy (500 - 1 BCE) provides an interesting case scenario to explore methodological problems regarding issues of identity and ethnicity.  In an area with many long-distance contacts across the Apennines, Alps, and along the Po Valley, the question arises how the various forms of cultural interaction were shaping people’s sense of identity. One major concern is, of course, the nature of our evidence. To what extent do pottery types, imported luxury products, funerary rituals, coinage, writing, language, and religion really inform us about issues of ethnicity? Artefact assemblages, for example, seem to change constantly and significant changes that indicate new developments regarding self-identity need to be identified. The second problem concerns the role of external factors in this process. What impact did the Celtic ‘invasion’ – allegedly in 396 or 388 BC – and subsequent Roman domination really have on people’s identity?  Another issue concerns the development and nature of these identities: was there ever anything like a ‘Ligurian’ or ‘Celtic’ identity in Cisalpine Gaul? In this context, the term ‘Celtic’ is a convenient shorthand to describe people who wrote and spoke a Celtic language and used artefacts and practices of Transalpine origin. We also have to explore the heterogeneous and geographically diverse character of local ethnicities and the way how these identities evolved when
"ethne" became Roman-style municipalities
Otherness, state formation and ethnogenesis - How did these constantly re-negotiated local identities develop in an increasingly pan-Italian world? With increasing interaction across Italy we would perhaps expect to find a more ‘global’ Italo-Hellenic identity in the post-conquest period. Instead our evidence suggests a much stronger local identity, especially aspects that reflect a certain ‘Celticity’ in writing, coinage, and material culture, as well as the continuous use of rituals and artefacts that go back to the early Iron Age period. Roman presence  per se did not result in  people ‘imitating’ or ‘emulating’ the conqueror’s culture, but their integration in Roman  political and military structures and their involvement beyond their local sphere of influence seems to create the wish to demarcate themselves by a stronger identity.

Through the vehicle of Nicolas Sarkozy’s so-called “Dakar Address,” we will analyze the West’s persisting lack of insight into the need for Western decolonization. We will attempt to identify the dangers that come from this refusal, such as the continued adherence to colonial patterns, the enduring self-understanding as being superior compared to Africa, and the persisting unwillingness to accept colonial guilt. Decolonization must be understood as a two-fold business. Decolonization means overcoming endured and perpetrated violence. It is not only important that the colonially oppressed regain strength, it is equally important that the perpetrators of colonial violence understand their excess of violence and work on rendering its return impossible. We explain how Western thinking remains dangerous and untrustworthy if it rejects its own decolonization. Finally, we will draw attention to a fundamental pattern of Western thought that clashes with the fundamental values of the West: contempt. In a final step, we suggest how this contempt can be overcome through desuperiorization and the establishment of elative ethics.

In this chapter, I argue – using a number of examples from representations of non-human animals – that there are close connections between the exotic otherness of animals in Occidental representations and the othering of some human groups.  Therefore, discourse on imperialism, colonialism and postcolonialism provides a framework within which the connections between human and non-human otherness may be explored.
Moreover, I argue that there is a need for discussing new ways of representing non-human animals in order to avoid traditional othering and stereotypes. Some authors, such as J.M. Coetzee and Barbara Gowdy, have tried to grapple issues of animal alterity in their fiction and have benefitted from their postcolonial context in doing so. Yet both the traditional stereotypes of animal otherness and contemporary attempts at dispensing with these raise questions and dilemmas when it comes to representing non-human animals.