Home - Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Imagining ‘the Turk’
Editor: Božidar Jezernik
Date Of Publication: Jan 2010
Isbn13: 978-1-4438-1663-2
Isbn: 1-4438-1663-9
A human being is a symbolic creature and, to the same extent, an active inventor of otherness. Europe and Turkey, The West and the Balkans, are infinitely exploitable symbols. Any symbol, inherently polysemic and socially construed, is continuously contested and negotiated.

The image of ‘the Turk’ as a ruthless plunderer is still vivid in European collective memory. Although it occasionally still verges on ethnic mythology, it clearly belongs to a past where, along with the plague and famine, this name used to be mentioned in prayers more frequently than that of God itself.

In the past, the name ‘Turk’ implied the negative of the European self-image. ‘The Turk,’ assuming the role of the ‘defining other,’ was considered as everything a European was not (primitive, barbarian, savage vs. civilised). As such, this concept was one of the constitutive elements of European (Western) cultural identity.

The aim of this book is nothing less than a better understanding of the European past related to the Ottomans. An intellectual traveller who takes his Orient Express at Victoria, however, will have to get off somewhere half-way and spend some time in the part of Europe set between the Alps and the Adriatic before ending his journey in Istanbul.

Božidar Jezernik is a professor of ethnology of the Balkans at the University of Ljubljana. He authored or edited 25 books. His book on Balkan travel reports was published as Wild Europe (London, 2004) and translated into Turkish, Polish, and Serbian languages; Italian and Albanian translations are forthcoming.

''Prof Bozidar Jerenik is a prominent Slovenian scholar and, above all, an expert on south-east European ethnology. This volume brings forward an interesting array of contributions spanning from the classical European images and perceptions of Turks all the way to the musicological perspective of the Balkans. It also provides us with an inverse angle of seeing the Turk or the European through the Turks themselves''.

''Rich in citations, cited references and sources, comprehensive in discussions, and clear in conclusions, this well equipped and diverse volume is a valuable companion to both researchers and laymen who would like to get more acquainted with the 'Turkish matter''. Damir Josipovic

Institute for Ehnic Studies (Slovenia)

Anthropological Notebooks, Year XVII,NO.2

Price Uk Gbp: 39.99
Price Us Usd: 59.99

Sample pdf (including Table of Contents)

We recommend

Language and Literature
Middle-earth and Beyond: Essays on the World of J. R. R. Tolkien

History
Arctic Discourses

Education
The Supportive School: Wellbeing and the Young Adolescent

Interesting reviews

From Navigating Music and Sound Education

“We rarely have the opportunity and time to engage with the practicalities of music teaching through the lens of evidence-based practice. This book provides us with a wonderful exception that is accessible to beginning and established teachers. It contains a wide range of stimulating and thought-provoking material that draws on real-world experiences and events, which are contextualised, informed and structured by theory. This is a powerful combination that we can visit again and again for insight and inspiration. Congratulations to all involved, particularly the editors for shaping such a valuable contribution!”
—Professor Graham F. Welch, University of London; President, International Society of Music Education

“Navigating music and sound education draws together a range of issues increasingly acknowledged to be at the basis of reflective and effective music learning and teaching: social settings, cultural dimensions, gender, indigeneity, varying cognitive approaches, inter-disciplinary connections, technology, types of learning, and creativity. It opens up areas of pedagogy that go beyond classroom methodology to acknowledge student individuality and encourage music learning and teaching grounded in the reality of students’ musical and social lives. It will be invaluable for those training to become educators and for teachers already in the field.”
—Associate Professor Peter Dunbar-Hall, University of Sydney

“This book brings an important contribution to music teacher education as it challenges the readers to rethink their paradigms of music education. It highlights the importance of preparing a reflective teacher, autonomous, creative and conscious of the multifaceted and multicultural locus in which they will work. The book also draws on the importance for music teachers to consider the context in which they work, and establish a dialog between local musical traditions, informal music practices and global trends of music teaching and learning. Most importantly, all chapters are in one way or another derived from research carried out on specific areas, thus stressing the importance of the research informed practice in music education.”
—Professor Liane Hentschke, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil; International Society of Music Education Immediate Past President

Many readers will appreciate Steve Dillon and Kathy Hirche’s description of the future of education in their work with dynamic technological contexts.

Navigating Music and Sound Education is a wonderful guide and resource for pre-service music teachers, for teachers in the field, and for teacher educators.

It offers a range of fresh perspectives on the state of music education as it is and as it might be. Kari K Veblen

Navigating Music and Sound Education is an ambitious project which features current research from 20 individuals whose professional identities run the gamut from musician to songwriter to student to educator to music therapist to ethnomusicologist. The book’s scope is perhaps the most exciting aspect of Navigating Music and Sound Education.
Kari K Veblen
University of Western Ontario
British Journal of Music Education
October 2011