Alterity and narrative : stories and the negotiation of Western identities / Kathleen Glenister Roberts.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Glenister Roberts, Kathleen, 1971-

Series:

SUNY series, negotiating identity.

SUNY series, negotiating identity

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Social perception--Europe--History.

Social perception.

Prejudices--Europe--History.

Prejudices.

Identity (Philosophical concept)--History.

Identity (Philosophical concept).

Identity (Psychology)--Religious aspects.

Identity (Psychology).

Identity (Philosophical concept) in literature.

Difference (Psychology)--History.

Difference (Psychology).

Difference (Philosophy) in literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (240 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Albany : State University of New York Press, c2007.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Drawing from the fields of rhetoric, cultural studies, literature, and folkloristics, Kathleen Glenister Roberts argues that identity and the history of alterity in the West can be understood more clearly through narrative motifs. She provides analyses of these motifs including infanticide, universalism, the Tower of Babel, the warrior Other, the noble savage, entropology, and the trickster. With current intellectual conflict as its subtext, this book posits that identity is always negotiated toward Otherness. Roberts interrogates narrative constructions of Western biases toward non-Western Others, with each chapter addressing a Western historical moment through an exemplary narrative. This process shows that by imagining and objectifying Others, Western cultures were creating their own Selves. In confronting the ethnocentrism of past historical moments, Roberts invites us to recognize it in the present—in a new way. Alterity and Narrative asks that we afford Others the ability to transcend their own ethnocentrism, and therefore avoid well-meaning but naïve calls for "cultural sensitivity."

Contents:

Front Matter

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

So¯te¯ria, the Mother as Other

A Man Cannot Be a Prophet in His Own Country

The Curses of Medieval Man

Fierce Warriors

The Enlightenment Noble Savage

Modernity, Industry, and the Fatal Flaw

The Rhetoric of Possibility

Conclusion

Notes

References

Index

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references (p. 203-216) and index.

ISBN:

9780791479513

079147951X

9781435606470

1435606477

OCLC:

181102787