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It is likely that anyone who encounters the term otherness for the first time would think it describes something different from us and yet akin to us. And they would be right, just as they would simultaneously be wrong. Otherness is an exceptionally complex term, which cannot be understood separately from the idea of the self. When we want to articulate who is, to us, the other, we also have to articulate who is their opposite – the latter being us. Therefore, when speaking of the other, we inevitably speak of ourselves. The coupling of terms myself/other was mentioned already by Hegel, who emphasized that the identification of the Other enabled the synthetization of one’s own identity (112). The Other (who is often identified within ethnic, racial, religious, geographical, and many other cultural and social categories) functions as a mirror. For Georg Simmel, for example, the Other is more than a stranger who is either close to or distant from us. The Other is an element that can simultaneously be a member of the group, outside of it, and in a confrontation with it (144). For Emanuel Levinas, the Other is what I am not. It is identified as one similar to us, but also different and extraneous. Precisely this extraneousness, which Levinas also refers to as alterity, illuminates a subject’s path toward himself by demonstrating that which is intrinsic – where he belongs (43, 48). By identifying the Other, a person or a group is labeled in a process in which we construct our own roles, our position within the society, and the meaning of ourselves. To have an Other is essential to creating an identity, for by identifying the Other, we facilitate the understanding of that which is “here” and that which is “there” because, as Antony Smith emphasized, identity is not created merely from one’s own experiences, memories, and myths, but through positioning oneself in relation to the collective identities of Others (11-36, 43). This process of synthetization of one’s own identity consists of forming an awareness of an in-group, which is based on a necessary delimitation toward an out-group. ...
The article presents an overview and analysis of the five existing Croatian translations of John Milton’s Paradise Lost, including two integral translations (Ivan Krizmanić, 1827; Mate Maras, 2013) and three partial ones (Pasko Antun Kazali, mid-19th century; Hugo Badalić, 1896-97; Antun Šoljan 1962, 1980). In addition to providing five diverse Croatian interpretations of Paradise Lost, an English and international classic, these five renderings reflect various tendencies and developments within Croatian literary culture and particularly those that affected its translation practices in different periods.Keywords: John Milton, Paradise Lost, Croatian translations, Hugo Badalić, Pasko Antun Kazali, Ivan Krizmanić, Mate Maras, Antun ŠoljanIn Croatian culture, John Milton is esteemed as an undisputed English, European, and world literary classic, even though he is not counted among the most popular and influential anglophone (canonical) authors, which include – first and foremost – William...
All narratives of Caryl Phillips present prolific ground for research in spatial literary studies. Phillips’s “Heartland,” the focus of this paper, deals with the mechanics of Britain’s enslaving past. The narrator is an anomalous character who stands at the borderline between two multiplicities and takes part in the social deterritorialization process of the absolute anomalous or, to say, a perpetual outsider, the slave, who loiters without a safe anchorage. The process of social deterritorialization necessitates the eradication of all beacons of geographical, familial, tribal, linguistic, and cultural belonging. The process of social deterritorialization necessitates the eradication of all beacons of geographical, familial, tribal, linguistic, and cultural belonging. This then requires a more stratified understanding and evaluation of the slave-making process as well as a critical reading of narratives of slavery such as “Heartland.” This paper, therefore, aims to construct a multifo...
This paper examines the narrative strategies of the oldest two medieval Eastern Adriatic historical accounts regarding the emergence of the Early Medieval gentes in local history. Seen through the framework of Othering, these accounts display complicated images within images rather than a linear narrative. At the same time, two categories of the Other seem to appear in them – the present, preferable Other, and the past, undesirable Other. By employing such strategies, the two histories depict all the gentes in an almost identical manner, and in accordance with the established images, with only some layers of actual historical background.Keywords: Middle Ages, Eastern Adriatic, medieval historians, Others, Croats“… multi christianorum … eligentes magis cum eis sustinere persecutiones et penuriam et salvare animas suas, quam gaudere ad tempus cum gentilibus et vi eorum perdere animas” (CPD 1: 28-30). Such severe accusations were brought in historical accounts from the High Middle Ages ag...
I have never yet written I’ve only scribbled this or that nor was it ever true I now can write and can see, what it is. True. Such truth as is reality itself, like that which is not like itself A mathematical dream: An absolute good. On the cube. Now I will write no more, I’ll merely jeer. Jeer even Anatole France himself and I surely can write yet surely more can cry and even more can endure... if someone requires it of me. It bothers me greatly that there is no reasoner... measurer. Since I cannot write poetry I’m trying it more often. Perhaps then it will be beautiful The way kitsch was, like an alien continent, Where never before have I walked and yet Have led there among great dangers... others And could do it bravely. And on a little branch I walked there myself. I’ve just seen it. It was not a joy ride, just what was shown to me by those fevered, willing friends Since then I’ve feared having a passion. Like cocaine. Like this familiar moment (?)... Hypnotized. Useful. Custom-mad...
The article rethinks the contemporary approach to the process of othering, which observes it through the lenses of modern social changes. The general premise of the article is that othering can be analyzed in the context of migration to Europe through three main categories. Namely, the behavioral-perceptive category, symbolic category, and lingual category. By analyzing the relevant research and theories, I will attempt to show that migrants are always necessarily othered by the dominant population, but with specific differences between migrant groups – in terms of religion, language, culture, values, and race. Keywords: the process of othering, migration, domicile society, discriminationOthering, a complex theory developed and analyzed by many theorists such as Jacques Lacan, Edward Said, Emmanuel Levinas, Simmel, and Michel de Certeau, is most briefly explained as the relationship of power and subordination during the encounter of different cultures (Said 5), groups, or individuals. ...
This paper analyzes four reports concerning dog-headed creatures (pasoglavci) published in the late 19th and early 20th century in the Journal of Folk Life and Customs of Southern Slavs (Zbornik za narodni život i običaje Južnih Slavena). In order to determine who the dog-headed creatures represented in the Croatian folk culture of the time and why reports concerning them got published in the first ethnological journal in Croatia, it was necessary to study the concept of dog-headed creatures from the perspective of the process of othering. The conclusion was that the specific historical and cultural circumstances that existed in the area from which the reports originated stimulated the construction of the idea that the dog-headed creatures existed, which was used both to demonize other ethnoreligious groups and to create a positive image of the original group’s own identity.