Europe in Its Own Eyes, Europe in the Eyes of the Other [Hardcover]

What is Europe? Who is European? What do Europe and European identity mean in the twenty-first century? This collection of sixteen essays seeks to answer these questions by focusing on Europe as it is seen through its own eyes and through the eyes of others across a variety of cultural texts, including sport, film, literature, dance, cartography, and fashion. These texts, as interpreted here by emerging researchers as well as well-established scholars, enable us to engage with European identities in the plural and to understand what these identities mean in larger cultural and political contexts.

The interdisciplinary focus of this volume permits an exploration of European identity that reaches beyond the area of European studies to incorporate understandings of identity from the viewpoints of both insider and other. Contributors explore diverse understandings of what it means to be other to a country, a culture, a society, or a subgroup. This book offers a fresh perspective on the evolving concept of identityin the context of Europe past, present, and futureand expands on the existing literature by considering the political tensions and social implications of the development of European identity, as well as its literary, artistic, and cultural manifestations.

In Spenser Morrisons chapter, the violent creation of otherness comes not through religious or racial discrimination but rather through the exported American-style capitalism that was part of the Marshall Plans rebuilding of Italy after the devastation of her cities during World War II.? Morrison proposes that Hellers novel Catch-22 uses the image of European cities destroyed in the War and subsequently reconstructed in part through American aid as a lens through which to view Americas Cold-War era urban crisis.?