ΠΕΡΙΟΔΙΚΟ ΠΑΡΟΥΣΙΑ Σειρά αυτοτελών δημοσιευμάτων αριθμ. 60 Parousia Publications in English Studies 60 © 2004, Christina Dokou, Efterpi Mitsi, Bessie Mitsikopoulou The Periphery Viewing the World Parousia no. 60 Faculty of English Studies School of Philosophy The National and Kapodistrian University of Athens Panepistimioupoli Zografou, 157 84, Athens, GREECE. 1. Linguistics 2. Literature 3. Cultural Studies 4. Media Studies. 5. Cultural Politics ISBN 960-8424-23-2 ΠΑΡΟΥΣΙΑ ISSN 1105-0454 Παραρτήματα ISSN 1109-9143 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in anyform or by any means, without prior permission in writing from the editors. Cover design by Seta Zakian ([email protected]). THE PERIPHERY VIEWING THE WORLD Selected Papers from the Fourth International Conference of the Hellenic Association for the Study of English Edited by Christina Dokou Efterpi Mitsi Bessie Mitsikopoulou Parousia Publications 60 Athens 2004 Table of Contents OPENING ADDRESS OF THE CHAIR OF THE FACULTY OF ENGLISH STUDIES Sophia Marmaridou………………………………………………………...…i AN INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………….iii I. T(A)INTED VISIONS Viewing from the Periphery: Richard Rorty and the Politics of Viewing Ann R. Cacoullos…………………………………………………………..…1 Proximity and Involvement in Television: On the September 11th Live Footage Lilie Chouliaraki………………………………………………………….…15 II. CONSTRUCTING PLACES AND IDENTITIES Globalization and Its Apparatuses: Reducing the World to a Globe Assimina Karavanta………………………………………………………....35 Greece as a Member-state of the EU: Moving from the “Periphery” to the “Centre” Christina Lykou…………………………………………………………...…42 Constructing Identities in the “Periphery”: the Case of the Elderly Apostolos Poulios………………………………………………….………..50 Periphery Viewing the World: Myths about Language Mary Drossou………………………………………………….……………57 Challenging the Centre: The Dynamic Construction of Identity in the Conversations of a Group of Young People in Greece Argiris Archakis and Angeliki Tzanne……………………………………....66 “Central Peripheries”: Private Affectation in Philip Sydney Emmanouil Aretoulakis………………………………………………….…..73 III. RESISTANCE AND APPROPRIATION Peripheral Visions and Invisible Englishes Alastair Pennycook………………………………………………………….83 “Just the Language”: The Disappearance of Culture in the Construction of Global English Martin A. Kayman……………………………………………………………100 IV. TEACHING AND NEGOTIATING THE DOMINANT CULTURE(S) Thresholds of Translatability between Centre and Periphery Stephanos Stephanides……………………………………………………..113 Returning with (or without) a Vengeance: “Shakespeare” and National Shakespeare at the Dawn of the Twenty-first Century Vasiliki Markidou………………………………………………………….119 “Outside Culture”: Virginia Woolf and a Politics of/for Outsiders Angeliki Spiropoulou…………………………………………………...….128 Teaching English as a Lingua Franca in Greek Primary Eeducation: A (Dis)Empowering Process? Androniki Gakoudi……………………………………………………...….134 Language Teaching as Culture-Bound Pedagogy: Setting the Criteria for the Designing of an EIL Course Nicos C. Sifakis and Areti-Maria Sougari....................................................141 “Agents of Change”: Challenges in the Flesh and the Teaching of American Literature William Dow…………………………………………………………….…150 V. THE CONCENTRIC AND THE EC-CENTRIC Manhood and Its Poetic Projects Rachel Blau DuPlessis……………………………………………………..159 Be-longing(s) Kenneth Parker…………………………………………………………….182 VI. THE DYNAMICS OF THE OCCLUDED Transnationalism, Peripheries, Viewing the World: Japan as a Model for Indian Nationalism 1895-1918 Bart Moore-Gilbert…………………………………………………….…..211 Working Bodies/Falling Words: Choreopoetry and Teatropoesia as Alternative Performance of Ethnicity and Gender Elizabeth Sakellaridou…………………………………………….……….218 The “Peripheral” Gains Dominance: Verb-Subject Order in Poetry Christine Calfoglou………………………………………………………...226 The Gaze of the Abject: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein Re-visioning the New Science Katerina Kitsi-Mitakou…………………………………………………….237 Marginality and Ambivalence in Lee Smith’s Saving Grace Carmen Rueda…………………………………………………………..…244 The Limits of Your Language, the Limits of My World: Impossible Testimonies in Dee Brown and Eduardo Galeano Christina Dokou……………………………………………………………250 ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS……………………………..………………..263 AUTHOR AND KEYWORD INDEX………………………………………….269 Opening Address of the Chair of the Faculty of English Studies Sophia Marmaridou When I was first informed by my colleagues about the theme of this conference, I was extremely interested, intrigued in fact. To raise the issue of how the periphery views the world in the fields of language, literature, media studies and philosophy within the broader area of English Studies in a plurilingual and pluricultural Europe inevitably leads to challenging existing frames of reference and starting an ongoing dialogue towards alternative conceptualizations and practices. Talking about the “periphery” viewing the world presupposes the existence of a “centre,” thereby adding one more duality to so many others that we live with: body vs. mind, feeling vs. reason, individual vs. society, to name but a few. It would appear that such dualities frame our minds and structure the way we perceive reality, talk and act. Before attempting to address issues concerning how the “periphery” views the world, one may wonder how conceptualizing reality in terms of periphery vs. centre comes about and whether, in fact, such a conceptualization reveals aspects of reality while obscuring others. Mark Johnson in The Body in the Mind: The Bodily Basis of Reason and Imagination has argued that pre-conceptual, bodily experience is structured in terms of some basic image schemas. One such schema is that of the “Centre-Periphery.” The argument goes that we experience our bodies as having centres (for example, the trunk and internal organs) and peripheries (fingers, toes, hair, etc.). We also experience trees and other plants as having a central trunk and peripheral branches and leaves. In this image schema, centres are viewed as more important than the peripheries in two ways: First, injuries to the central parts are more serious than injuries to the peripheral parts. Secondly, the centre defines the identity of the individual in a way that the peripheral parts do not. A tree that loses its leaves is the same tree. A person whose hair is cut off or who loses a finger is the same person. Thus, the periphery is viewed as depending on the centre, but not conversely: bad circulation may affect the health of your hair, but losing your hair does not affect your circulatory system. Now, given Lakoff’s view that there is a metaphorical mapping from physical space to conceptual space, a spatial, directly understood image schema such as the “Centre-Periphery” one provides structure to other complex and often abstract concepts in politics, aesthetics, economy, etc. But metaphor is also known to reveal aspects of reality while concealing others. To go back to the topic of this conference: if it is true that pre-conceptual image schemas give rise to metaphorical understandings of the world around us, this ii SOPHIA MARMARIDOU conference has set out to challenge and re-consider such metaphorical understandings, thereby revealing aspects of reality that metaphor hides. By doing so, it seeks to lay open for inspection current discursive practices and at the same time articulate alternative views of territoriality. Conference preparations take up a lot of effort, time and energy. This conference is no exception. I would like to thank my colleagues for all the good work they have done and done so promptly. This conference could not have happened if it had not been for the generous support of a number of organizations and the people behind them who gladly agreed to help. We would like to thank the administration of the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Culture. We also wish to register our thanks to the Australian Embassy, the British Council, the American Embassy, the Fulbright Foundation, the Canadian Embassy and the Centre of Canadian Studies, as well as PALSO for their support. So, thank you all for making this event possible. An Introduction The present volume includes a number of selected papers presented at the 4th International H.A.S.E. Conference that took place in Athens in May 2002, offering diverse glimpses of an evolving area of study and encompassing a multitude of theoretical trends and practices in language, literature, philosophy, media and cultural studies. The conference aimed at launching a new inquiry on the notions of periphery and center, revealing attempts to re-view the world through challenge, resistance and appropriation. By showing that the act of viewing forms and re-forms itself in geographical and ideological spaces, conference papers focused on the emergent discourses in the periphery and exposed the internal contradictions in current globalizing ideologies. An important theme of the conference, which is also covered in this volume, concerns contemporary theories and global discourses which lead to linguistic and cultural (dis)empowerment, issues also connected to the politics of the English language and its teaching. Moreover, a significant number of papers examine the construction of identities in the periphery and interpret the representations of self in minority settings. The volume is divided in six parts, three out of which present the addresses of our conference plenary speakers; the remaining