Representations of Eastern Europe in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials, Jonathan Stroud's The Bartimaeus Trilogy, and J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter Series

2010 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marek Oziewicz
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Harry Potter ◽  
Fuzzy Cluster ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
Philip Pullman ◽  
Cultural Attitude ◽  
His Dark Materials ◽  
Cultural Maps ◽  
East West

This essay examines the cultural maps of Eastern European nations drawn by Philip Pullman in His Dark Materials trilogy, Jonathan Stroud in The Bartimaeus Trilogy and J. K. Rowling in the Harry Potter series. I argue that each of those authors, in subtle and unintentional ways, perpetuates Western politico-cultural superiority in regard to Eastern Europeans. One reason for this may be that Pullman, Stroud and Rowling share a specifically British cultural attitude of regarding the continent as alien and incomprehensible. This perspective is part of a fuzzy cluster of notions, seemingly widespread across Europe, which comprise what Lawrence J. Sharpe calls ‘an East-West continuum of cultural one-upmanship’ (309). As the most westerly people on this continuum, so the explanation goes, the British tend to look down on everyone else to the East. My focus in this article is on how these attitudes are communicated in some of the most internationally popular British fantasy series of the recent years.

scholarly journals Hobbits, Hogwarts, and the Heavens: The use of fantasy literature and film in astronomy outreach and education

2009 ◽  
Vol 5 (S260) ◽  
pp. 306-310
Author(s):  
Kristine Larsen
Keyword(s):  
Harry Potter ◽  
Fantasy Literature ◽  
Science Centers ◽  
Lord Of The Rings ◽  
Philip Pullman ◽  
His Dark Materials ◽  
Outreach Programs ◽  
Chronicles Of Narnia ◽  
Education And Outreach ◽  
Literature And Film

AbstractDue in part to recent (and ongoing) film adaptations, the fantasy series of C.S. Lewis (The Chronicles of Narnia), J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter), Philip Pullman (His Dark Materials), and J.R.R. Tolkien (The Silmarillion, The Hobbit, and The Lord of the Rings) are being introduced to a new audience. Many astronomers and astronomy educators are unaware of the wide variety of astronomical references contained in each series, and the myriad possible uses of these works in astronomy education and outreach. This paper highlights activities which educators, planetariums, and science centers have already developed to utilise these works in their education and outreach programs.

Eastern European Political Thought as a Conceptual Tool

2019 ◽  
pp. 676-699
Author(s):  
Delia Popescu
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
European Studies ◽  
Conceptual Tool ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Analytical Category ◽  
East West

The canon of political theory rarely deals with Eastern European political thought, either as a regional category or in relation to particular thinkers. The omission has to do with both the current focus on historiography and the assumptions that underlie political theory methods concerning the creation of a canon. This chapter explores how the geopolitical category of Eastern Europe has imposed a hegemonic interpretation of political thought, relegating Eastern European thinkers to a particular and subaltern niche in European studies. To illustrate the argument, the chapter briefly invokes the example of Vaclav Havel’s political thought and its reception. The discussion is meant to serve as a springboard to propose a reconsideration of both the study of political theory (and its canon) and the East–West duality as an analytical category.

This is neither America nor Paris: The east‐west divide in Eastern European queer-themed films

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 241-256
Author(s):  
Fanni Feldmann
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
The State ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
Western Thought ◽  
Self Perception ◽  
The West ◽  
Cultural Imagination ◽  
State Socialist ◽  
East West ◽  
Land Of Dreams

Abstract The fantasy of the west as a land of 'dreams come true' is a long tradition in the Eastern European cultural imagination and in cinema as well. Eastern European queer-themed films imagine the west as a utopian dreamland and depict the East (Eastern Europe) as backward and futureless. By analysing relevant Eastern European queer-themed films from three different decades, this article points out how the inherited fantasy of the west as imagined during the state socialist era infiltrates Eastern Europe's self-perception, when ‐ in an act of self-colonization ‐ the films create a hierarchy of values within which the liberal west is contrasted with the depiction of Eastern European spaces through othering strategies central in western thought. When the characters' dreams do come true ‐ and they reach the west ‐ disappointment is inevitable. Their retreat to their Eastern origins results in double disappointment, being trapped between crushed western dreams and Eastern nightmares.

Looking at European Sports from an Eastern European Perspective: Football in the Multi-ethnic Polish Territories

2011 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 595-610
Author(s):  
Anke Hilbrenner ◽  
Britta Lenz
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Initial Phase ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
European Perspective ◽  
Sports History ◽  
East European ◽  
Slow Diffusion ◽  
Sporting Culture ◽  
New Research

Until recently, sports history has largely neglected Eastern Europe. Yet new research has shown that historians need to embrace a perspective from the periphery towards the centre, and reach beyond the paradigms of modernization, Sovietization, and the nation-state if Europe's sporting culture is to be fully understood. Focusing primarily on Poland, this article outlines three features peculiar to the region. First, it stresses the importance of trans-national spaces and networks as well as European sub-regions. Missing out on the initial phase of sport's internationalization due to lack of independence, the development of Polish sport was regionally distinct. Sports flourished in Habsburg-ruled Galicia (in Cracow and Lodz especially) under relatively liberal political authorities, but developed more slowly and under different influences elsewhere. Second, the prominence of rural Galicia, inhabited by traditional groups such as Ukrainian peasants or Chassidic Jews, shows that Polish sport did not evolve in line with modernization and industrialization. The relatively slow diffusion of sport in industrial centres such as Warsaw or Silesia contradicts the paradigm of modernization and the notion of East European backwardness. Third, sport history sheds light on phenomena such as multi-ethnicity, migration, integration or disintegration.

The Christianisation of the eastern European Steppe peoples

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 183-208
Author(s):  
Jarosław Dudek
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
Early Middle Ages ◽  
Nomadic Communities

This paper examines the difficulties experienced in bringing Christianity to the peoples of eastern Europe in the early Middle Ages and beyond. In focus are the problems and processes of converting the Eurasian nomads who appeared in the steppes of eastern Europe. The research reveals that the success of missionary activity from various Christian denominations (often associated with trade activities) depended upon the receptiveness of the leaders of nomadic communities. A number of examples from various communities are provided.

scholarly journals The “Fiction Meter”

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ida Fábián
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
Sociological Analysis ◽  
European Origin ◽  
Family Stories ◽  
Female Authors ◽  
Literary Forms ◽  
The Relationship

This article is about a piece of research started in 2019 which focuses on the literary, cultural and sociological analysis of biographical and family stories by contemporary Jewish female authors from Eastern-Europe writing in German. This study investigates the relationship between the literary and lingual appearance of memories and the age, the Eastern-European origin, the socialization and the identity of the authors. The research also deals with the differences between the literary forms of the various generations of authors and the identifiable irony-fiction-reality correlation in the memories told.

scholarly journals The State of Rural Sociology as Presented in Four Periodicals – Rural Sociology, Sociologia Ruralis, Journal of Rural Studies, Eastern European Countryside

2013 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Grzegorz Zabłocki
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Rural Population ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
World Wide ◽  
Central And Eastern Europe ◽  
Rural Sociology ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
Social Phenomena ◽  
Rural Studies

Abstract This article is an analysis of differences and similarities between four Englishlanguage journals on rural sociology. The comparison covered topics discussed in about 600 articles published in the journals in the years 1995-2010 and the regional affiliation of their authors. In the comparison, all articles and texts on empirical research published in this period in Eastern European Countryside were considered. In total, 141 texts were published in this annual journal. Out of the three other journals (Rural Sociology, Sociologia Ruralis, Journal of Rural Studies) 50 articles for each of three periods: 1995-1996, 2002-2003, 2008-2009, were selected. Results of the comparison show that the journals have strictly regional profiles, and that present rural sociology does not seem to be the science on social phenomena in world-wide rural areas. Rural sociology used in the four studied journals does not develop the knowledge that would be useful in solving problems of the rural population. In the three journals under study (Rural Sociology, Sociologia Ruralis, Journal of Rural Studies) almost exclusively sociology of rural areas in Western Europe and Northern America was developed, and their contributors were almost always authors from the two regions. The fourth journal - Eastern European Countryside - was concerned, adequately to its title, with rural phenomena in Central and Eastern Europe

scholarly journals Principal components analysis of employment in Eastern Europe

2006 ◽  
Vol 53 (4) ◽  
pp. 427-437 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mirko Savic
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Principal Components Analysis ◽  
Principal Components ◽  
Statistical Analyses ◽  
Multivariate Methods ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
Multivariate Statistical Analyses ◽  
Multivariate Statistical ◽  
Full Picture ◽  
Components Analysis

For the last decade, the employment structure is one of the fastest changing areas of Eastern Europe. This paper explores the best methodology to compare the employment situations in the countries of this region. Multivariate statistical analyses are very reliable in portraying the full picture of the problem. Principal components analysis is one of the simplest multivariate methods. It can produce very useful information about Eastern European employment in a very easy and understandable way.

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