Gender and Cultural Diversity: Representing Difference

In general, feminist and minority scholars perceive popular culture and the media as either terrains to be contested and carefully analyzed due to their oppressiveness in representing the other, or, alternatively, as important, potentially powerful sites, wherein gender, ethnic, sexual, etc. differences can be – to use Rosi Braidotti's words – "affirmatively deconstructed" (2002, 171) and, in this way, symbolically empowered.

The main objective of this volume is to overview a critique of different representational practices in reference to ethnic, religious, gender, or sexual difference, as well as to discuss the mechanism of representation itself. The chapters present various interdisciplinary approaches to cultural images inspired by gender studies, philosophy, cultural studies, psychoanalysis, linguistics, as well as literary and film studies. The book offers an insight into a number of case studies around the common theme of difference as visualized in various popular culture, media, and artistic texts from diverse national, historical, and spacio-temporal contexts. Consequently, the volume provides a, much needed in contemporary Europe, commentary on issues related to diversity politics as reflected and contested in different cultural products

Representation and Difference: Introduction to Feminist Approaches
DOROTA GOLAŃSKA AND ALEKSANDRA M. RÓŻALSKA. ..5
The Duality of Gendered ICT Expertise: Finnish Novels and Newspapers
MARJA VEHVILÄINEN. 23
Patterns of Femininity in Polish Cinema after 1989
KAJA ZAPĘDOWSKA-KLING 39
Gender and Family Discourses in Polish Television Series in the Context of Catholic and National Values
ALEKSANDRA M. RÓŻALSKA. . 59
Lesbianism and Women of Color–Chicana Artists in Their Final Transgression
GRAŻYNA ZYGADŁO 79
Masculinity Seen Through Photorealistic Images. David Hockney's Selected Artworks
JUSTYNA STĘPIEŃ 93
Victims, Enemies, and Gays. Images of Jews in Polish Theatre on the Example of W. Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice
AGATA DĄBROWSKA 107
Scenes of Alterities–Poetics of Hospitalities
IRMA ERUNGSDÓTTIR 127
Mein Nick bin ich! Nicknames in a German Forum on Eating Disorders
WYKE STOMMEL 139
From the Visual to the Virtual: Towards a Post-dualistic Techno-logic in Contemporary Science-Fiction
DOROTA GOLAŃSKA 167
Decentering the Masculine: American Psycho, Violence, and a Becomingimperceptible
MAREK M. WOJTASZEK 185
Notes on Contributors 207
Index 210