„the art of stereotyping“ – how to construct your neighbours?
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„The Art of Stereotyping“ – How to construct your neighbours?. Prof. Dr. Werner Nell Comparative Literature MLU Halle 2011-12-8. Stereotypes are …. … jokes … weapons … instruments … media … signs … mirrors … products of art … objects of shame - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
„The Art of Stereotyping“ –How to construct your neighbours?
Prof. Dr. Werner NellComparative LiteratureMLU Halle 2011-12-8
Stereotypes are …
… jokes … weapons … instruments … media … signs … mirrors … products of art … objects of shame … sensors of emotions and attitudes (caring – hating)
Topics of Today
1. Concepts and analytical dimensions2. A (small) historical review3. Fields of construction and reflecting:
Limitations and chances of literature, art, and criticsm
4. Some consequences for construction proper identities: The individual and „the rest“:
Purity as a threat
Research contributions
Manfred Beller, Joep Leerssen (Ed.) Imagology, 2007
Walter Lippmann: Public Opinion, 1922 Gordon W. Allport: The Nature of Prejudice,
1954 A.V. Zijderveld: On Clichés, 1979 Hans Henning Hahn (Ed.): Stereotyp,
Identität und Geschichte, 2002 (poln. 2011) Ruth Florack: Bekannte Fremde, 2007
1. Concepts
Cliché (Zijderveld) Stereotype (Lippmann) Prejudice (Allport) Stigma (Goffman) Hate speech (Butler) Image/mirage (Guyard) Imagology (Leerssen 2007)
Cliché
„in printing trade an engraved block for repeated printing“
Stereotype
„fixed pictures in our heads“ (Lippmann)
„Throughout history there has been a tendency to fixate one‘s own estimate of oneself and the others … in terms of a limited number of foreground attributes – for the others and symmetrically or asymmetrically reflected to us too:
heterostereotypes - autostereotypes
Prejudice
Any preconceived and unsupported opinion and attitude which influences our perception, description and judgement of others
Prejudices appear on the individual level as well as on a group level
Prejudices are enforced by ideological powers like religion, nationalism, regionalism, racism (inclusion by means of exclusion programs)
Stigma
The fixation of an attribute to a sign which can be used as a marker of extinction, discrimination, exclusion etc.
The „nature“ of the sign is arbitrary on the one hand, conventional – by historical tradition, ideological obsession – on the other
Hate Speech
A disourse and its performances which are used, sometimes produced, mostly communicated, to hurt or destroy the others
Racist remarks, sexist and four letter words are instruments to hurt a body and to destroy a mind, the self-concept and the self-respect of a person
Image/mirage
The picture(s) of a group, a people, another country in literary texts or other artificial media
Of course, by describing the others we describe ourselves
„the sixth difficulty in writing the truth: the national or group founded bias in looking at the others“ (Egon Schwarz, 1976)
Imagology
The literary, critical study of media transportated images
2. Historical Review
A people‘s panel from Styria (Austria)(Eine steierische Völkertafel, 1730)
Constructing and Deconstructing images/stereotypes by literary and other cultural patterns Simple constructions (I)
Diverging constructions (II) Paradox constructions Complementary constructions Competing constructions Pluralistic constructions Contested constructions
Reflecting/reflexive Constructions (III) Contradictory constructions Ambivalent constructions Deconstructing constructions Ironical constructions (Geoffrey Hartman,
1997) Self-reflecting and self-denying
constructions Nonsense and no-nonsense constructions
4. Some consequences for constructing and handling with „proper“ identities: purity as a threat The individual and „ the rest“: Personal Cultural Regional National Global„national history means getting one‘s history
wrong“ (Ernest Gellner)
Prezentacja powstała w ramach projektu dofinansowanego przezFundację Współpracy Polsko-Niemieckiej
Thank you very much!