Encounters with Civilizations: From Alexander the Great to Mother Teresa

ISBN-13: 9781412818315 / Angielski / Miękka / 2011 / 328 str.

Gëzim Alpion

Opis

Encounters with Civilizations is a broad-ranging work, uniting sweeping themes such as history, culture, the media, social issues, and politics. Building around comparative analyses of aspects of Albanian, Egyptian, British, and Indian cultures, Alpion addresses the problems people experience in their encounters with civilizations different from their birth cultures. The course of history has made the confrontation and comingling of different cultures inevitable. It has also engendered ambivalence toward the cultures involved, including a desire to emulate the new culture, or resentment, or conflicting attitudes toward the relative strength or weakness of both birth and new cultures. Alpion describes how Egyptian culture and politics have been shaped by foreign domination while retaining ancient customs at the social level. In comparison, Great Britain has been an imperial power whose cultural preeminence has shaped the images of smaller countries in the eyes of the world. Alpion writes of English images of his native Albania and offers a penetrating analysis of Mother Teresa as a Christian missionary in Hindu and Muslim India, focusing on her cultural presentation via the media and the cult of celebrity. Whether discussing the customs of Egyptian coffee houses or Alexander the Great as a defining figure in Western and Eastern culture, Alpion grasps the impact of these cultural encounters. He makes us aware that understanding and resolving such differences involves considering ultimate issues of life and death.

Spis treści

Part One Albania  Chapter 1 An interview with the ghost of Mohammed Ali, former ruler of Egypt  Chapter 2 Kosova – a corner of Europe still waiting for peace  Part Two Egypt  Chapter 3 Foreigner complex  Chapter 4 Egyptian coffee shops  Chapter 5 The Bride of Hapi – female sacrifice and cosmic order  Chapter 6 A parade of porters  Part Three The United Kingdom  Chapter 7 If Only the Dead Could Listen (Scene Four)  Chapter 8 Images of Albania and Albanians in English literature – from Edith Durham’s High Albania to J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter  Chapter 9 Western media and the European ‘other’ – images of Albania in the British press  Part Four India  Chapter 10 Oh! not Calcutta  Chapter 11 Media and celebrity culture – subjectivist, structuralist and post-structuralist approaches to Mother Teresa’s celebrity status  Chapter 12 A review of Hiromi J. Kudo’s book Mother Teresa: A Saint from Skopje  Chapter 13 A note on Gëzim Alpion’s book Mother Teresa: Saint or Celebrity? By Gaston Roberge  Chapter 14 Mother Teresa, abortion and the media, By Gaston Roberge  Part Five Envoi: ‘No’ to social closure  Chapter 15 Brain down the drain – an exposé of social closure in Western academia  Notes  Select bibliography  Index