Imagology Profiles: The Dynamics of National Imagery in Literature
This volume highlights the importance of imagology, one of the most popular areas of research in contemporary comparative studies. It proposes new means of academic analysis to create critical attitudes towards the development of imagological studies. The topics discussed draw a wide trajectory, from classical to marginal images, from national heroes to (un)conventional aspects of gender, from ethno-imagology to the broader dimension of intercultural references and epistemological post-poststructuralist changes.
The compendium widens the field of imagology by introducing concepts such as “geo-imagology” and “imagology of gender”, and by linking the imagological strategy with the power principle developed by post-colonialism and with the fictional project of an imaginary utopian society. The essays selected include case studies focusing on the works of individual authors, as well as broader insights concentrating on regional, national and transnational identities that experienced a change of imagery due to historical, political and social shifts. The book pays particular attention to the aspects of mobile imagery, the emergence of peripheral identities related to gender, class, ethnicity or race, and the detection and assessment of well-established stereotypes. The scope of the topics discussed and the variety of periods covered imply the universal nature and versatile applicability of literary imagology.
Dr Laura Laurušaitė is a Researcher at the Institute of Lithuanian Literature and Folklore and a member of its Group of Baltic Literary Studies. From 2013 to 2015, she was a postdoctoral fellow at the Lithuanian University of Educational Sciences. Her main research domain is the Lithuanian and Latvian diaspora and contemporary migration literature. Her theoretical interests involve comparative literature, postcolonialism and imagology. She has published over twenty articles and a monograph, Tarp nostalgijos ir mimikrijos: Lietuvių ir latvių pokario išeivijos romanai [Between Nostalgia and Mimicry: Lithuanian and Latvian Post-war Émigré Novels] (2015).
"The authors examine national, cultural, ethnic, and gender images in many fascinating case studies, enter new thematic and geographic imagological territory, and make some very interesting comparisons both between distant nations (Scotland - Lithuania) or 'distant neighbors' (Scandanavia - Baltics)."
Sandra Folie, Friedrich Schiller University Jena
Zrinka Blažević
Vigmautas Butkus
Natalia Isaieva
Algis Kalėda
Jurgita Katkuviene
Anneli Kõvamees
Margarita Malykhina
Radosław Okulicz-Kozaryn
Taisija Oral
Viktorija Šeina
Maxim Shadurski
Zane Siliņa
Gitana Vanagaitė
Manfredas Žvirgždas
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