Turkey and the European Union
Subtitle: Christian and secular images of Islam
By: Paul T. Levin
Edition: 1st ed.
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Published: 2011
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 278
ISBN-13: 9780230104617
Subjects: Civilization; Public opinion; Stereotypes (Social psychology); European Foreign opinion; Islamophobia; European Union
Description: "This book critically examines the origins of today's anti-Islamic rhetoric in Europe with a specific focus on representations of Turkey. Applying a novel theoretical framework that understands collective identities as dramaturgical achievements, it shows that stereotypes of Turks continue to provide an important "Other" against which a supposed European "Self" is contrasted. The book identifies two competing meta-narratives that have long vied for the right to define Christendom and later Europe, and argues that the struggle over these narratives - one tragic, the other comic - have come to a head in Turkey's current bid for EU membership"--
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [251]-266) and index.
Table of contents: title: Introduction and theoretical framework; title: Exclusive identities and military defeat: from first encounters to the High Middle Ages (ca. 632-1050); title: Inclusive identities and military expansion: Latin Christendom in The High Middle Ages (ca. 1050-1350); title: Introducting Europe and "the Turk": the Renaissance and the Reformations; title: "Mahomet the Imposter": old and new in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century European images of Islam; title: Turkey and the European Union: the historical legacy and contemporary attitudes; title: Competing narratives: images of Turkey in the European Parliament (1996-2010); title: Appendix: political groups in the European Parliament.