top of page
IN PREPARATION:

Ambiguous Selves: Contesting Gender Binaries in Literature, Film and the Media

Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2018, editors: Barbara Braid, Malwina Siemiątkowska and Ewa Glapka

This collection of essays examines the issues concerning the role of binaries in the construction of genders and sexualities in the heterosexual matrix, and possible disruptions to these binaries. The materials comprises a wide selection of cultural and performative texts and practices: from literature, to film, television, magazines and theatre. 

 
Performing America

editors: Beata Zawadka and Barbara Braid

Publication: 2019

JUST PUBLISHED:
Perspectives on Canada. International Canadian Studies despite Harper and Trudeau

Verlag Dr. Kovac, 2018, editors: Barbara Butrymowska and Uwe Zagratzki

Despite many adversities – to name only the Harper administration´s non-funding policy of multi-national research programmes – International Canadian Studies have become a backbone of North American studies. Numerous publications by European Canadianists, not to mention others, in the previous years bear witness to this success story. The present volume takes it up and exemplifies the unbridled variety of research fields within Canadian Studies. Originating in a selection of papers given in a series of talks organised by the Szczecin Canadian Studies Group at the Institute of English of Szczecin University , the collection provides the reader with an insight into literature, culture, politics and diverse research methods in contemporary research on Canada. Among the aspects highlighted we find Indigenous Relationality, Indigenous Autobiographies, Canadian Children´s Fiction, Canada and the North, Intersectionality, Food in Canadian History and Literature, Anti-War Novels between 1929 – 1958, Language Policy in Quebec and US-Canada political relations.

The volume brings together reputed experts in their particular fields on the one hand, and young scholars at the beginning of their careers on the other. They all have in common a fresh focus on the thematic variety of Canadian studies.

 
Disrespected Neighbo(u)rs: Cultural Stereotypes in Literature and Film

Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2018, editors: Caroline Rosenthal, Laurenz Volkmann, Uwe Zagratzki (publication date: 1 June 2018)

Neighbourly relations frequently position a “self” against an “Other”. This is the case for both individuals and nations, and, indeed, within the various cultural groups of a nation. Our racial, ethnic, social, or gender identities are often created in demarcating ourselves by stereotyping the Other. Disrespect of the immediate neighbour based on stereotypical pre-conceptions and cultural biases may lie dormant for a long time and then, as shown in recent conflicts around the globe, suddenly surface due to changed economic and political conditions.

Media, including films and fictional as well as non-fictional texts, feature prominently in producing, propagating, and maintaining cultural difference and stereotypes in ideologically effective ways. This volume analyses re-presentations from various angles, as it comprises articles dealing with ethnic groups and neighbo(u)rhoods from three world areas, as well as genres and media instrumental to their respective cultural stereotyping. This focus on literary and media representations of the neighbo(u)rly Other from miscellaneous cultural environments results in a comprehensive understanding of analogies and differences in the mechanisms of production and perception of stereotypes. Addressing the manifold discourses at the heart of stereotyping the familiar Other, the book also points to their far-reaching repercussions on lived cultural practices.

Gender under Construction: Femininities and Masculinities in Context

Brill, 2018, editors: Ewa Glapka and Barbara Braid (publication date: 27 March 2018)

Gender performativity, its variances depending on their historical, social and cultural contexts, and the rituals, representations and institutions involved in gender performances are some of the issues the authors addressed in this collection. Gender under Construction takes a non-essentialist view of gender and provides illustrative examples of gender constructive processes by pursuing them in various contexts and by means of diverse methodologies. In so doing, the book demonstrates that it is unfeasible to consider gender as a fixed biological trait. Instead, the authors propose to look at gender performance as ongoing processes in which femininities and masculinities enter multiple and dynamic intersections with a myriad of categories, including those of nationality, ethnicity, class, sexuality and age. 

9783339101341.jpg
bottom of page