The Roma and Their Struggle for Identity in Contemporary Europe


Book Description

Thirty years after the collapse of Communism, and at a time of radically diverse kinds of identity politics, including anti-migrant, anti-Roma, anti-Muslim and anti-establishment movements, this book analyses how Roma identity is expressed in contemporary Europe. From backgrounds ranging from political theory, postcolonial, cultural and gender studies to art history, feminist critique and anthropology, the contributors reflect on the extent to which a politics of identity regarding historically disadvantaged, racialized minorities such as the Roma can still be legitimately articulated. In part, the contributors argue, the answer lies in a movement beyond classic identity politics and any opposition between essentialism and constructivism.




Purging the Empire


Book Description

While the fate of minorities under Nazism is well known, the earlier expulsions of Germany's unwanted residents are less well understood. Against a backdrop of raging public debate, and numerous claims of a 'state of exception', tens of thousands of vulnerable people living in the German Empire were the victims of mass expulsion orders between 1871 and 1914. Groups as diverse as Socialists, Jesuits, Danes, colonial subjects, French nationalists, Poles, and 'Gypsies' were all removed, under circumstances that varied from police actions undertaken by provincial governors through to laws authorising removals passed by the Reichstag. Purging the Empire examines the competing voices demanding the removal or the preservation of suspect communities, suggesting that these expulsions were enabled by the decentralised and participatory nature of German politics. In a surprisingly responsive political system, a range of players, including the Kaiser, the Reichstag, the bureaucracy, provincial officials, and local police authorities were all empowered to authorise the expulsion of unwanted residents. Added to this, the German press, civic associations, chambers of commerce, public intellectuals, religious societies, and the grassroots membership of political parties all played an important role in advocating or denouncing the measures before, during and after their implementation. Far from revealing the centrality of authoritarian caprice, Germany's mass expulsions point to the diffuse nature of coercive sovereign power and the role of public pressure in authorising or censuring the removals that took place in a modern, increasingly parliamentary Rechtsstaat.




Mudejarismo and Moorish Revival in Europe


Book Description

Mudejarismo and Moorish Revival in Europe offers a critical examination of the reception of Ibero-Islamic architecture in medieval Iberia and 19th-century Europe. Taking selected case studies as a starting point, the volume challenges prevalent readings of interconnected cultural and artistic phenomena.




Der Vampir


Book Description

Der Vampirmythos findet in der Populärkultur als Blutsauger und Übermensch Resonanz. Es geht um die rätselhafte Frage des Übergangs der Toten ins Jenseits, das Spannungsfeld von Eros und Thanatos. Seit mehr als 200 Jahren nach der Veröffentlichung von John Polidoris "The Vampyre. A Tale" (1819) ist der Vampir Bestandteil der europäischen Literaturen. Als liminale Figur konnotiert er Invasion und ist damit eng mit der Abwehr des (fremden) Anderen assoziiert; als ambivalente Figur signifiziert der Vampir faszinosum und tremendum, steht für Kulturkontakt und Abgrenzung gleichermaßen. Der Vampir fungiert seit der Aufklärung selbst als Reflexionsfigur unterschiedlicher Wissenskulturen und ist derart für die Fragestellung des kulturellen Transfers doppelt relevant. Insbesondere vor dem Hintergrund aktueller Entwicklungen in Europa mit gegenwärtig einhergehender Angst vor Überfremdung entwickelt die Figur neues Deutungspotential. Die Grenze zwischen Tier und Mensch, belebt/unbelebt, dem Heiligen und dem Profanen, zwischen Genres und Medien, zwischen Kulturen, gesellschaftlichen Schichten, Geschlechtern, geographischen Räumen – all diese Aspekte thematisiert dieser Band am Beispiel der Grenzgängerfigur Vampir. Mit Beiträgen von: Raul Calzoni, Maria Grazia Cammarota, Silvia Casazza, Michela Gardini, Kirsten von Hagen, Peter von Möllendorff, Alexandra Müller, Marco Sirtori, Martin Spies, Bernhard Unterholzner, Alessandra Violi




Music, Longing and Belonging


Book Description

With contributions from musicologists, historians, sociologists, anthropologists and literary scholars, this book provides an interdisciplinary perspective on how different modes of musical sociability - ranging from opera performances to collective singing and internet fan communities - inspire ""imagined communities"" that not only transcend national borders, but also challenge the boundaries between the self and the other. While the relationship between music and nationhood has been widely r...




Approaches to a “new" World Literature


Book Description

The history of written Romani literature is only about 100 years old, and thus Romani literatures are still being defined and consolidated. At least two special features characterize this young literature: on the one hand, it is a multilingual diasporic world literature that often can be characterized as engaged literature and tries to deconstruct various age-old stereotypes of the minority. On the other hand, female authors play a strikingly prominent role. Female authors frequently achieve visibility with their texts on the national book markets. Some authors appear in their own texts as committed feminists and/or human rights activists. For other authors, sexuality and gender play a less prominent role in their works. Additionally, women often also play very central roles in texts by male authors. Therefore, this volume aims to explore the different facets of Romani literatures on two interrelated axes. First, the essays explore the status of several diverse works as transnational world literature. Second, the contributions examine the significance of writing as a form of social engagement and self-empowerment. What emerges is the observation that mainly women authors have been speaking out and standing up for their rights as women and Romnya. With contributions from: Oksana Marafioti, Ana Belén Martín Sevillano, Martin Shaw, Kirsten von Hagen, Marina Ortrud M. Hertrampf, Emilia Kledzik, Florian Homann, Paola Toninato, Sidonia Bauer, Lorely French, Viola Parente-Capková




Love, history and emotion in Chaucer and Shakespeare


Book Description

This collection of essays explores medieval and early modern Troilus-texts from Chaucer to Shakespeare. The contributions show how medieval and early modern fictions of Troy use love and other emotions as a means of approaching the problem of tradition. As these texts reflect on their own traditionality, they highlight both the affective nature of temporality and the role of affect in scrutinising tradition itself. Focusing on a specific textual lineage that bridges the conventional period boundaries, the collection participates in an exchange between medievalists and early modernists that seeks to generate a dialogic encounter between the periods with the aim of further dismantling the rigid notions of chronology and periodisation that have kept medieval and early modern scholarship apart.




Dialogue and Rhetoric


Book Description




Selbst- und Fremdbilder von Roma in Comic und Graphic Novel


Book Description

Roma sind als größte ethnische Minderheit seit Jahrhunderten in Europa heimisch und sind doch bis heute massiven Vorurteilen und rassistischen Ressentiments ausgesetzt. Die longue durée der vorurteilsbehafteten Heterostereotype spiegelt sich nicht nur in Alltag und Politik, sondern auch in den unterschiedlichen Formen des graphischen Erzählens. Mehrheitsgesellschaftliche Comics und Graphic Novels bedienen sich eines sehr eingeschränkten Repertoires althergebrachter Heterostereotype. In den gegenwärtig populären Geschichts- und Reportagecomics wird hingegen versucht, eben diesen Klischeebildern durch dokufiktionale Darstellungsmodi entgegenzuwirken. Diese Strategie findet sich auch bei vielen Selbstdarstellungen von Roma, die ganz explizit in den Fokus gerückt werden, um Gemeinsamkeiten und Unterschiede von Selbst- und Fremddarstellungen sowie deren unterschiedliche Formen und Funktionen auszuloten. Der transdisziplinär-komparatistisch konzipierte Band nimmt dabei Perspektiven der Kultur- und Comicwissenschaften wie der Soziologie, Theologie und den Romani Studies ein. Mit Beiträgen von Dietrich Grünewald: Zwischen Unterhaltung und mahnender Erinnerung Marina Ortrud M. Hertrampf: ,Porajmos-Comics' - Der Blick von Roma auf den Holocaust Marina Ortrud M. Hertrampf: Gegen das Vergessen - Kkrist Mirrors Tsiganes Martin Frenzel: Zwischen Hergés klarer Linie und Emmanuel Guiberts ,Reisen zu den Roma'. Das Bild der Sinti und Roma im frankobelgischen Comic Jörn Ahrens: Randerscheinungen. Roma-Figuren im klassischen franko-belgischen Comic Frank Thomas Brinkmann: Melancholischer Gipsy, geheimnisvolle Roma? Eine religionshermeneutische Perspektive auf spezielle Charaktere, Sequenzen und Sinnfiguren in 'Zigeunercomics' Kirsten von Hagen: La belle gitane – von der Fremd- zur Selbstrepräsentation Sofiya Dimitrova Zahova: Historicizing East European Romani Graphic Narratives Ralf Kauranen, Viola Parente-Capková, Anna Vuorinne: A Mad Artist's Escapes: Intersectional Identities in Kiba Lumberg's Comics