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Editorial
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 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. ...
Breath
1
misty tulips
a mist of tulips
of tulips
of tulips
a morning spread like a dream
over rivers...
don’t you wake up Atlas’s son
don’t
don’t
let him sleep
with his head resting
on a pillow of tulips
2
white tulips
son’s light
light
yellow tulips
son’s sun
sun
red tulips
red
red
father’s sunset
like fire through backbone
fire
3
a mist of purple
over rivers
over rivers
the dreamy migrates anew
from tulip to tulip
purple in a bed of mist
purple
a sweet melody
of river
of fire
Assen, Netherlands
August 2018
That blue tulip!
That tulip hidden between two trunks
deep in the woods, deep in there,
dreams every instant
of sipping a little more dew.
Honey dew,
as the sun sets down at dusk...
That blazing-body tulip,
that blue tulip!
Amsterdam, August 2018
To You
This season, you lull under a sky superior to mine;
the thin hoarfrost on trees is fog respiration only,
which shreds our landscapes in crystals of lethargic winters...
Wake up, for the nature’s spirit is raving in feminine heat,
under guitar strums that grunt for love
and whisper no farewell to forget-me-not flowers...
Freeze like dusk in front of abrupt light,
in a land shivering of lonely tunes, under a sky
where the sun doesn’t shine to merely show-off!
Freeze in the flames
slumbering lustily in the blood of spring embers,
freeze, and still show up on doorsteps
shiny like this sky, my handsome one!
A Cat Like No Other...
Latest media news:
“Billionaire Lagerfeld willed his whole estate to his cat, Choupette.”
There is now a cat
with her fur much more expensive
than all of the ladies’ fur coats in Broadway!
A royal cat, whimsical and pampered,
that has folks wonder of the eventual male suitor
she’ll drive mad to the point of committing suicide!
Our dearest little heiress, with her bluest eyes,
now outshines the enthusiastic ornithologist,
who lectures on and on about birds
to an audience of huge fans of stunning fowl photos,
feathers and chirps,
who claims absolute expertise on flying,
but knows nothing of children in Aleppo!
Accursed...
In the alpine Accursed Woodlands,
where time stands still,
breath stands no chance to breathe,
o traveler!
At the Blessed Bridge,
do not pin your hopes on the stone,
if waters first didn’t bless your trip,
o Man!
The Coolest Loser
Blind eyes, sleepy,
across worldly winters –
eyes sunk into blooming abysses, my loser.
Please take a quick look at the sun by dawn,
it’s a lamp brighter than an eye’s pupil...
O coolest loser, with three lanterns in hand,
no loony got enlightened under moonlight;
springtime wolves grow white-haired like men,
hunters, though, can hardly spot them out in snow!
U mom gradu sigurno niste bili, ali znate taj tip. Izlaz s autoceste, industrijska zona, kino s pet dvorana, kilometar kvadratni grada nakrcan stoljetnim pabovima. Atlantik je blizu; blizu je kvrgava čeljust obale s rtovima pod vječitom najezdom galebova. Ljetne večeri; miris balege naliježe na pašnjake okolnih naselja dok ravnodušni volovi podižu glave da bolje osluhnu riku friziranih jurilica koje klinci ganjaju zabačenim cestama.Mlad sam, a nas mladih ovdje nema mnogo, pa se može reći da se sve nas pita. Nedjelja je. Gotov je vikend, taj trodnevni festival drobljenja. Nedjelja je dan pročišćenja i kajanja; dan omekšanih lubanja, uzburkanih želudaca i šupljih obećanja da se više nikada, ali nikada nećemo tako razvaliti. Veseli te što dan ide svome kraju prije nego što je uopće počeo. Osam sati već je odavno prošlo, ali vani se još nije smračilo; topla svjetlost prožeta je onom ugodnom melankolijom koja prati srpanjske večeri na zapadu. Sa mnom za stolom, u prostoru za pušače vani pre...
This paper is a critical examination of discursive strategies of othering in three refugee-focused books in Turkish children’s literature written after the onset of Syrian civil war. Drawing upon Van Dijk’s ideological analysis, eliciting the representation of “us vs. them” in a network of semantic and formal structures, the study has two closely related main aims. The first is to show how children’s literature, as a significant conveyor of norms, values, and ideology, provides fertile ground to examine power relations. The second is to identify discursive strategies of othering, which categorize and underscore group-based differences by attributing negative characteristics, in three Turkish children’s books about the Syrian war. Findings demonstrate that negative representation of the Other is foregrounded by actor description, lexicalization, and implicitness within the framework of semantic structures. Formal structures resonate with topoi under the umbrella of argumentation and rhe...
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...
