New Perspectives on Imagology

With the volume New Perspectives on Imagology, the editors Katharina Edtstadler, Sandra Folie, and Gianna Zocco propose both a theoretical reconsideration and an actualization of the field of imagology, a specialism within European-based comparative literature, which traditionally studies the cultural construction and literary representation of national character. The book defines national images of self and other not as empirical facts about national temperaments, but as discursive objects constructed, solidified, and reacted upon in various textual and cultural genres, among them most notably literary and fictional writings. It links the renewed interest in understanding the dynamics of such images to recent developments such as the so-called European refugee crisis, the Brexit, and the presidency of Donald Trump, which have demonstrated the virulence of ethnic stereotyping. The overall aim of the book is to conceive imagology, which has sometimes been criticized for its Eurocentric perspective, in a way that is consistent with the world of the 21st century and its increasingly transnational, globalized, and post-/de-/neocolonial character. Particular attention is paid to the ways in which images of other nations intersect with categories such as gender or race/ethnicity. Peripheric literary and non-literary genres as well as related findings from other disciplines are also taken into account. The book begins with an instructive introduction, which provides an overview of the preceding developments in the field of imagology and outlines some of the methodological questions the editors encountered in the preparation of the book. The 21 chapters are structured along five thematic sections: 1) a reconsideration and update of the fields methods, genres, and theoretical frames; 2) trans-/post- national, migratory, and marginalized perspectives beyond the European nation-state; 3) inquiries into the global or transcontinental functioning of contrastive images such as Orient/Occident or center/periphery; 4) intersectional approaches considering the multiple entanglements of national images with notions of age, class, gender, sexuality, religion, and race/ethnicity; 5) investigations of the role of national images in visual narratives and musical genres that have not yet been subject to imagological analysis, among them a caricature circulating on Twitter and folk songs. Through the numerous cross-references within the volume and a detailed index, an academic dialogue between the individual contributions is established. Moreover, these features of the volume encourage a future dialogue between scholars of different disciplines and interests, inviting researchers to reflect about the ways in which imagology and currently flourishing fields such as postcolonial, gender, and mobility studies could profit from each others insights.