Download or read book Stereotyped images of the West and the East in Michel Houellebecq s novel Platform written by Daria Gaiduk and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2015-03-16 with total page 47 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seminar paper from the year 2013 in the subject German Studies - Comparative Literature, grade: 1.3, University of Flensburg, language: English, abstract: Throughout the history both the Eastern and the Western parts of the world had a certain image of each other as of the opposites. The world division into ‘us’ and ‘them’ had certainly brought a number of stereotypes and prejudices. With the development of tourism, the humanity has got more opportunities to travel around the world and to discover foreign cultures. However, travelling did not eliminate all the stereotypes filling human minds. “Platform”, the second novel of controversial French author Michel Houellebecq, reveals some clichés and prejudices of modern society. This work aims to analyse stereotyped images of the West and the East civilisations described in the novel, and to investigate the reason of their usage, as well as the impact they make on the prejudiced characters. In order to make the analysis more effective, the essay will cover the most prominent stereotypes based on the nation, gender, sexuality, and religion. In order to elaborate a clear line of analysis of the novel, which is a vivid example of postmodern literature, the essay arguments are based on the works of postmodern critical theorists writing on the Western and the Eastern civilisations (such as Jacques Derrida, Noam Chomsky, Michel Foucault, Edward Said, Homi K. Bhabha, etc.). To make the analysis more comprehensive the essay includes the researches of psychiatrist, psychologists, psychoanalysis theorists and sociologists, as well as political scientists and communication theorists (Samuel P. Huntington, Walter Lippmann, Anthony Giddens, Gordon Allport, Sigmund Freud, Slavoj Žižek, William Cox, Patricia Devine, etc.).
Download or read book Imperium written by Frederic Lordon and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2022-01-25 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An investigation into what makes the consistency of political groupings What should we do with the ideals of internationalism, the withering away of state and horizontality? Probably start by thinking seriously about them. That is to say, about their conditions of possibility (or impossibility), rather than sticking to the wishful thinking which believes that for them to happen it is enough to want them. Humanity exists neither as a dust cloud of separate individuals nor as a unified world political community. It exists fragmented into distinct finite wholes, the forms of which have varied considerably throughout history - the nation-state being only one among many, and certainly not the last. What are the forces that produce this fragmentation, engender such groupings and prevent them from being perfectly horizontal, but also lead them to disappear, merge, or change form? It is questions such as these that this book explores, drawing on Spinoza's political philosophy and especially his two central concepts of multitudo and imperium.
Download or read book Pathos Poetry and Politics in Michel Houellebecq s Fiction written by Russell Williams and published by Brill. This book was released on 2020 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Pathos, Poetry and Politics, Russell Williams examines the literary style in the work of Michel Houellebecq. This book underlines the extent to which the author's notorious provocations are key to the texture of his novels.
Download or read book Eyrie written by Tim Winton and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2014-06-10 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shortlisted for the 2014 Miles Franklin Literary Award An exhilarating new book from Australia's most acclaimed writer Tim Winton is Australia's most decorated and beloved literary novelist. Short-listed twice for the Booker Prize and the winner of a record four Miles Franklin Awards for Best Australian Novel, he has a gift for language virtually unrivaled among English-language novelists. His work is both tough and tender, primordial and new—always revealing the raw, instinctual drives that lure us together and rend us apart. In Eyrie, Winton crafts the story of Tom Keely, a man struggling to accomplish good in an utterly fallen world. Once an ambitious, altruistic environmentalist, Keely now finds himself broke, embroiled in scandal, and struggling to piece together some semblance of a life. From the heights of his urban high-rise apartment, he surveys the wreckage of his life and the world he's tumbled out of love with. Just before he descends completely into pills and sorrow, a woman from his past and her preternatural child appear, perched on the edge of disaster, desperate for help. When you're fighting to keep your head above water, how can you save someone else from drowning? As Keely slips into a nightmarish world of con artists, drug dealers, petty violence, and extortion, Winton confronts the cost of benevolence and creates a landscape of uncertainty. Eyrie is a thrilling and vertigo-inducing morality tale, at once brutal and lyrical, from one of our finest storytellers.
Download or read book Lanzarote written by Michel Houellebecq and published by William Heinemann. This book was released on 2003 with total page 112 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On Lanzarote, there are some fascinating human specimens - notably Pam and Barbara, "non-exclusive" German lesbians. Will they succeed in seducing Rudi, the police inspector, currently living in exile in Brussels? And will our narrator consider his week's holiday on the island a success?
Download or read book Whose History written by Grant Rodwell and published by University of Adelaide Press. This book was released on 2013 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Somebody once quipped that any work of Australian historical fiction is a 'burning fuse', travelling over decades through Australian culture and society. In some manner, every newly published Australian historical novel is connected to what it has preceded. Each work belongs to a proud history. Through multiple examples, Grant Rodwell encourages readers to see how a work of historical fiction has evolved. Thus, under various themes, WHOSE HISTORY? examines the traditions in Australian historical fiction, and ponders how Australian historical novels can engage teachers and student teachers. WHOSE HISTORY? aims to illustrate how historical novels and their related genres may be used as an engaging teacher/learning strategy for student teachers in pre-service teacher education courses. It does not argue all teaching of History curriculum in pre-service units should be based on the use of historical novels as a stimulus, nor does it argue for a particular percentage of the use of historical novels in such courses. It simply seeks to argue the case for this particular approach, leaving the extent of the use of historical novels used in History curriculum units to the professional expertise of the lecturers responsible for the units.
Download or read book Artist at Work Proximity of Art and Capitalism written by Bojana Kunst and published by John Hunt Publishing. This book was released on 2015-08-28 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The main affirmation of artistic practice must today happen through thinking about the conditions and the status of the artist's work. Only then can it be revealed that what is a part of the speculations of capital is not art itself, but mostly artistic life. Artist at Work examines the recent changes in the labour of an artist and addresses them from the perspective of performance.
Download or read book The Road from Damascus written by Robin Yassin-Kassab and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2008-06-05 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is summer 2001 and Sami Traifi has escaped his fraying marriage and minimal job prospects to visit Damascus. In search of his roots and himself, he instead finds a forgotten uncle in a gloomy back room, and an ugly secret about his beloved father... Returning to London, Sami finds even more to test him as his young wife Muntaha reveals that she is taking up the hijab. Sami embarks on a wilfully ragged journey in the opposite direction, away from religion – but towards what? As Sami struggles to understand Muntaha’s newly-deepened faith, her brother Ammar’s hip hop Islamism and his father-in-law’s need to see grandchildren, so his emotional and spiritual unraveling begins to accelerate. And the more he rebels, the closer he comes to betraying those he loves, edging ever-nearer to the brink of losing everything... Set against a powerfully-evoked backdrop of multi-ethnic, multi-faith London, The Road from Damascus explores themes as big as love, faith and hope, and as fundamental as our need to believe in something bigger than ourselves, whatever that might be.
Download or read book Michel Houellebecq written by Douglas Morrey and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Michel Houellebecq is one of the most successful and controversial contemporary French novelists. Translated worldwide, with three film adaptations of his works, he has also been at the center of a host of media scandals in France. In this book, Douglas Morrey examines Houellebecq's stark representation of humanity—a terminal state of decadence and decline ripe for replacement by a posthuman successor—looking at the global significance of his visions at the same time that he situates them in the contexts of French literature, culture, and society.
Download or read book 2084 written by Boualem Sansal and published by Europa Editions. This book was released on 2017-01-31 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A “sharply satirical” novel about an oppressive religious dictatorship and one man’s discovery of an underground resistance (Library Journal). 2015 Winner of the Le Grand Prix du Roman de l’Académie française A tribute to George Orwell’s dystopian classic 1984 and a cry of protest against totalitarianism of all kinds, Boualem Sansal’s 2084 tells the story of a near future in which religious extremists have established a caliphate that forbids autonomous thought. In the year 2084, in the kingdom of Abistan—named after the prophet Abi, earthly messenger of the god Yölah—citizens submit to a single god, demonstrating their devotion by kneeling in prayer nine times a day. Remembering the past is forbidden, and an omnipresent surveillance system instantly informs the authorities of every deviant act, thought, or idea. The kingdom is blessed and its citizens are happy, filled with purpose and piety. Those who are not—the heretics—are put to death by stoning or beheading in city squares. But Ati has met people who think differently: In ghettos and caves, hidden from the authorities, exist the last living heretics and free-thinkers of Abistan. Under their influence, Ati begins to doubt. He begins to think. Now, he will have to defend his thoughts with his life. 2084 is “a rare, powerful book, at the intersection of fable and lampoon, of satire and science fiction,” a cry of freedom, a gripping novel of ideas, and an indictment of the kind of closed-minded fundamentalism that threatens our democracies and the ideals on which they are founded (Lire). “Alison Anderson’s deft and intelligent translation [conveys] Sansal’s abhorrence of a system that controls people’s minds, while explaining that the religion was not originally evil but has been corrupted. A moving and cautionary story.” —The Times Literary Supplement “A powerful novel that celebrates resistance.” —The Guardian
Download or read book Fields of Sense written by Markus Gabriel and published by Edinburgh University Press. This book was released on 2015-01-14 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Markus Gabriel proposes a radical form of ontological pluralism that divorces ontology from metaphysics, understood as the most fundamental theory of absolutely everything (the world). He argues that the concept of existence is incompatible with the exist
Download or read book Writing Emotions written by Ingeborg Jandl and published by transcript Verlag. This book was released on 2018-07-31 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After a long period of neglect, emotions have become an important topic within literary studies. This collection of essays stresses the complex link between aesthetic and non-aesthetic emotional components and discusses emotional patterns by focusing on the practice of writing as well as on the impact of such patterns on receptive processes. Readers interested in the topic will be presented with a concept of aesthetic emotions as formative both within the writing and the reading process. Essays, ranging in focus from the beginning of modern drama to digital formats and theoretical questions, examine examples from English, German, French, Russian and American literature. Contributors include Angela Locatelli, Vera Nünning, and Gesine Lenore Schiewer.
Download or read book The Cambridge Introduction to Satire written by Jonathan Greenberg and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides a comprehensive overview for both beginning and advanced students of satiric forms from ancient poetry to contemporary digital media.
Download or read book The Search for Europe written by Daron Acemoglu and published by La fabrica. This book was released on 2016 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume is now the eighth in the annual series sponsored by BBVA as part of its OpenMind initiative, which is devoted to disseminating knowledge on key issues of our time. The Search for Europe analyses the present and future of the old continent and its integration project, surely the most ambitious political and economic integration project ever attempted in history, a benchmark for similar processes in other regions. The book is divided into three main sections: "The economic foundations of the European project", "Europe and its nations: Politics, society and culture", and "The unresolved Limits of Europe and the new global powers". It features pieces written by international experts such as Javier Solana, Barry Eichengreen, Philip Cooke, Bichara Khader, Vivien Ann Schmidt, John Peet and Thomas Christiansen, among others.
Download or read book Gender and Sexuality Justice in Asia written by Joseph N. Goh and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-12-15 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book brings together a group of innovative scholars examining the contemporary issue of effecting gender and sexuality justice in the context of Asia, consonant with engendering a just, equitable and sustainable development for all. These grassroots initiatives are woven through three complementary sections of the book: gender justice in Asia, sexuality justice in Asia, and finding resolutions through conflict. The book foregrounds strategies that aim to call out and challenge existing gender and sexuality injustices with regard to women and the LGBTIQA+ community by: assessing the efficacy of gender mainstreaming policies through micro-credit schemes for women in East Java, Indonesia; proliferating the signifiers of the hijab (veil) by postmodern Malay-Muslim women or ‘Hijabistas’ within the consumerist culture of Malaysia; making visible the injustices of the Syariah legal system for non-Muslim women, and ground-breaking legislation that could potentially recognise same-sex marriages in Thailand; privileging the narratives of gay women diplomats within the highly masculinised field of diplomacy in the Asia-Pacific region; foregrounding the narratives of Filipino gay men, intimate partner violence among young Indonesian Christian young people, masculine-identifying lesbians in Singapore, young LGBT people in rural Vietnam, and a Chinese-Muslim Malaysian female-to-male transgender person; and proposing new ways of becoming an inclusive church through the radical act of befriending persons living with HIV and AIDS in Southeast Asia. This book celebrates diverse and inclusive voices and strategies of gender and sexual agents of change in envisioning and bringing to fruition a just and transformative society for all. It is of interest to students and scholars researching gender and sexuality in areas of development studies, international relations, socio-legal studies, and literary studies.
Download or read book The clamour of nationalism written by Sivamohan Valluvan and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2019-07-26 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nationalism has reasserted itself today as the political force of our times, remaking European politics wherever one looks. Britain is no exception, and in the midst of Brexit, it has even become a vanguard of nationalism’s confident return to the mainstream. Intellectual attempts to account for nationalism’s resurgence have however floundered. Desperately trying to read nationalism through one overarching cause – as capitalist crisis, as cultural backlash, or as social media led anti-Establishment politics – these accounts have proven woefully inadequate. This book argues that the only way to understand nationalism is through nationalism itself. To understand it as the key force of modernity that calls upon all existing ideological traditions in asserting its appeal: whether it is liberal, conservative, neoliberal or left-wing. This ideological clamour that characterises today’s British nationalism requires both recognition and theorisation. A meaningful understanding of new nationalism must reckon with the ideological range animating it and the deeply hostile aversion to different racial minorities that pervades its respective ideologies. Drawing on a variety of cultural and political themes – ranging from Corbyn’s dithering, the cult of Churchillism, the neoliberal fixation with a ‘point-system’ immigration policy, the muscular secularism of Richard Dawkins and friends, fears that the white working class have ‘become black’, and even simply the strange appeal of Harry Potter and Game of Thrones – this book provides a dazzling but always detailed study of how nationalism is the politics of today only because it is a politics of everything.
Download or read book Moral Blindness written by Zygmunt Bauman and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2013-04-24 with total page 187 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Evil is not confined to war or to circumstances in which people are acting under extreme duress. Today it more frequently reveals itself in the everyday insensitivity to the suffering of others, in the inability or refusal to understand them and in the casual turning away of one’s ethical gaze. Evil and moral blindness lurk in what we take as normality and in the triviality and banality of everyday life, and not just in the abnormal and exceptional cases. The distinctive kind of moral blindness that characterizes our societies is brilliantly analysed by Zygmunt Bauman and Leonidas Donskis through the concept of adiaphora: the placing of certain acts or categories of human beings outside of the universe of moral obligations and evaluations. Adiaphora implies an attitude of indifference to what is happening in the world – a moral numbness. In a life where rhythms are dictated by ratings wars and box-office returns, where people are preoccupied with the latest gadgets and forms of gossip, in our ‘hurried life’ where attention rarely has time to settle on any issue of importance, we are at serious risk of losing our sensitivity to the plight of the other. Only celebrities or media stars can expect to be noticed in a society stuffed with sensational, valueless information. This probing inquiry into the fate of our moral sensibilities will be of great interest to anyone concerned with the most profound changes that are silently shaping the lives of everyone in our contemporary liquid-modern world.
