Today.Az » Society » "Stereotypes in Literatures and cultures" book by Azerbaijani professor and U.S PhD student
01 May 2010 [09:37] - Today.Az
The book with the same name has been published by Peter Lang Publisher in April 2010 with edition of Prof. Rahilya Geybullayeva (from Baku Slavic University) and PhD student from University of Wisconsin, Peter Orte.
This book was intended as a challenge to find ways of approximation rather than of aversion; it was also the goal of the conference, in which about one hundred participants from different countries, including Azerbaijan, Japan, Brazil, France, USA, South Korea, United Kingdom, Czechia, Russia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Turkey took part. The conference “Stereotypes in Literatures and Cultures” conference held on 21-22 November 2008 and pro¬posed by Baku Slavic University and Azerbaijan Comparative Literature Association.
Myths related to and imaginative representations of different cultures are one of the major stumbling blocks to understanding, deepening the gap between people as they are passed from one text to another, especially in periods of historical transition. These transfers are sometimes innocent, while at other times they serve political agendas.
The transformation of the literary image of the Caucasus people in XIX-th century Russian Literature in the works of Pushkin, Lermontov, A. Bestujev-Marlynsky etc., as brave, dignified, romantic mountain dwellers into a second-rate people, mainly unpleasant guest workers in Russia, is a popular example of this: the transformation of a regional type crystallized into a stereotype as a result of the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The book is contemplated in order to create a broader framework for comparative cultural and literary analysis. The papers selected come from any perspective of relevance to literature and culture. Chapters include topics and issues ranging from ethnic stereotypes and national image, the role of stereotypes in the construction of an inside and an outside, what is one's own and what is other, stereotypes and cultural transfers through cross-vision, and the role they play in conceptions of gender, religion, and history.
The sample of images and estimations of others becomes a priority and, frequently for this reason, stereotypical. This is the subject of investigation for the majority of the authors in this collection. For example, stating that the positive, elevated, and sympathetic image of Circassians in the encyclopedia is in apparent contradiction with what one would expect, given the conflict between Russians and the Circassians, and the neutrality that ought to belong to a scientific book, it goes on to offer a semantic analysis. The articles collected in the book re-examine the novels of Kurban Said, focusing on the portrait of the Muslim in his novels, provides a historical survey of the development of stereotypical images of Turks and Jews in French and English Literature.
Apart from the ethnically-regional principle of the initiation and formation of stereotypes, another considerable factor in this line is represented by social groups. First of all there is the question of gender, which was naturally transferred to the humanities from public gossip, sometimes with the pressure and violence of moral/ethical standards. The study of gender has been of relevance not only in Sociology and Religious Studies, and also in Literary Criticism. Both the traditionally accepted theme of the «image of the woman in literatures and culture», as well as the less perceptible theme of the «images of men in the literature and culture», appear in the works of authors of both genders on the crossroads of the creative and biocognitive possibilities of the author.
Settled stereotypes also sometimes become subject to reinterpretation, mainly in the historically and politically transitional periods. A point of interest lies in the efforts of these authors to reinterpret their traditions and identity in reaction to their place in the modern world—an example of this would be the interpretation of Islam as a religion in which science is essential—though at the time the opposite opinion was generally held—and the project of negotiating the adoption of western technology and science, a necessary component in the national project, and perhaps even to the very idea of ‘nation,’ without becoming assimilated to them.
This book with presented here articles is an attempt to understand the core of confirmed or standardized social norms. Among the authors and editors are scholars with such various backgrounds as French Turkologist Paul Dumont; Korean specialist on American Studies Kun Lee; a Japanese expert on Russian literature Takayuki Yokota-Murakami Turkish/French Gul Mete-Yuva; Hungarian/American Izabella Horvatt, who works in China; Indian/Brazilian Sudha Swarnakar, who graduated from a UK university, as well as scholars with strong inside views as Anvar Galeyev from Kazaxstan, Azerbaijani Prof. Aslan Mamedli, French Prof. Didier Francfort, etc.
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