Alterity and narrative : stories and the negotiation of Western identities / / Kathleen Glenister Roberts

• Record Nr.: UNINA9910811935803321
• Autore: Roberts Kathleen <1971->
• Pubbl/distr/stampa: Albany, : State University of New York Press, c2007
• ISBN: 0-7914-7951-X; 1-4356-0647-7
• Edizione: [1st ed.]
• Descrizione fisica: 1 online resource (240 p.)
• Collana: SUNY series, negotiating identity
• Disciplina: 305.09182/1
• Soggetti: Social perception - Europe - History; Prejudices - Europe - History; Identity (Philosophical concept) - History; Identity (Psychology) - Religious aspects; Identity (Philosophical concept) in literature; Difference (Psychology) - History; Difference (Philosophy) in literature
• Lingua di pubblicazione: Inglese
• Formato: Materiale a stampa
• Livello bibliografico: Monografia
• Note generali: Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph
• Nota di bibliografia: Includes bibliographical references (p. 203-216) and index.
• Nota di contenuto: Front Matter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- So¯te¯ria, the Mother as Other -- A Man Cannot Be a Prophet in His Own Country -- The Curses of Medieval Man -- Fierce Warriors -- The Enlightenment Noble Savage -- Modernity, Industry, and the Fatal Flaw -- The Rhetoric of Possibility -- Conclusion -- Notes -- References -- Index
• Sommario/riassunto: Drawing from the fields of rhetoric, cultural studies, literature, and folkloristics, Kathleen Glenister Roberts argues that identity and the history of alterity in the West can be understood more clearly through narrative motifs. She provides analyses of these motifs including infanticide, universalism, the Tower of Babel, the warrior Other, the noble savage, entropology, and the trickster. With current intellectual conflict as its subtext, this book posits that identity is always negotiated toward Otherness. Roberts interrogates narrative constructions of Western biases toward non-Western Others, with each chapter addressing a Western historical moment through an exemplary ; narrative. This process shows that by imagining and objectifying Others, Western cultures were creating their own Selves. In confronting the ethnocentrism of past historical moments, Roberts invites us to recognize it in the present—in a new way. Alterity and Narrative asks that we afford Others the ability to transcend their own ethnocentrism, and therefore avoid well-meaning but naïve calls for "cultural sensitivity."