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This book examines German media representations of Ireland from 1946 to 2010, from the post-war period to the years of the so-called «Celtic Tiger» and Ireland's subsequent economic downturn. It charts both the patterns and the inconsistencies in depictions of Ireland in the weekly publications Der Spiegel and Die Zeit, as well as in German cinema.
Cultural stereotypes may be employed in the furthering of a problematic cultural essentialism; however, they may also be used to «play» with readers' or viewers' expectations. They may be juxtaposed with newer cultural generalizations, or re-moulded to fit a transformed cultural reality. The representations of Ireland examined in this book are revealed as inherently ideological, consistently locating Ireland outside of an evolving European societal «normalcy». While this is often presented as something highly positive, the book argues that it implicitly places Germany at the centre of Europe and may be viewed as a type of excluding Europeanism.
List of contents
Introduction: Transnational Cultural History and Irish-German Intercultural Studies - The Semantics and Syntax of Journalistic Articles of "Other" Cultures: Stereotypes and Ideological Narrative Meaning - Unravelling a "Canon" of Representations: Irish Stereotypes in German Cinema - 'Many things appear Oriental': Ireland in Der Spiegel and Die Zeit, 1946-1968 - 'Their hands still clasp prayer books and guns': Ireland in Der Spiegel and Die Zeit, 1969-1993 - 'Nowhere is Europe so American as in Ireland': Ireland in Der Spiegel and Die Zeit, 1994-2010
About the author
Fergal Lenehan teaches Intercultural Studies at the Friedrich Schiller University of Jena.
Report
Dublin Review of Books
«[...] Lenehan's study is a great achievement and distinctive contribution to transnational cultural history, in which he anchors this work, in general and lrish-German Studies in particular.»
(Melanie Neumann, interculture Journal 16/29 2017)
