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 From Introduction