*** ANTONELLA CAMPANINI, PETER SCHOLLIERS, JEAN-PIERRE WILLIOT (Eds.): Manger en Europe. Patrimoines, échanges, identités. Presses Interuniversitaires Européennes / Peter Lang (1 av. Maurice, B-1050 Brussels. Tel: (41-32) 3761717 - Fax: 3761727 - email: info@peterlang.com - Internet: http://www.peterlang.com )."L'Europe alimentaire" series, No. 1. 2011, 262 pp, €30-50. ISBN 978-90-5201-738-9.
This is the first volume in a brand new series of books on food in Europe, in which a group of researchers and lecturers interested in food identity cast the critical eye of anthropologists and historians over the formation of gastronomic culture, culinary exchange and fusion and the emergence at various epochs and in different countries of new products, recipes and ways of eating.
As the three editors explain in the introductory essay, very few people these days doubt the prime importance of food in the building of cultural identity, be it of a family, a social class, a city or even a nation. Individuals and communities have always fashioned themselves through their own way of thinking about food and cooking it, which brings us neatly to the famous quotation of Brillat-Savarin's: 'Tell me what you eat and I'll tell you who you are.' In cuisine, however, as in everything else, nothing is completely black and white, being rather of various shades of grey.
As part of a European masters degree on the history and culture of food organised by the Universities of Bologna (Italy), Tours (France), Barcelona (Spain) and, since the 2010/2011 academic year, both the French and the Dutch Free Universities of Brussels (Belgium), a four-week Erasmus Intensive Programme took a step back from stereotypes and received ideas, examining the question from a new angle, which is faithfully recorded in this volume.
The essays are divided into three sections - heritage, exchange and identity - demonstrating that it is not possible to see Europe as a single melting pot of identities when it comes to food. The authors show that national cuisine has long been influenced from many directions, borrowing knowledge and culinary skills that have crossed national borders and influence both the food products eaten and the way dishes are prepared. This goes so far, argue Antonella Campanini (of Pollenzo University of Gastronomic Science), Peter Scholliers (of Vrije Universiteit Brussel) and Jean-Pierre Williot (of the François Rabelais University in Tours), that the Europe that is constructed through systems for the flow of goods, capital, words and people could not possibly be present on the food scene as no more than a juxtaposition of national cuisines because through successive layers of sedimentation, dietary practices have metamorphosed into a palimpsest of European food heritage that is well known to the inhabitants of other parts of the world today.
As ever, the outlines of a European identity can be seen better from Asia, Africa or the Americas!
Meanwhile, it goes without saying that against the backdrop of globalisation, Europe expends great effort in playing up its differences. How? Firstly in the field, with a return to traditional and supposedly authentic cooking, but this rediscovery or reinvention is probably much the same as 'an identity fight-back,' Secondly, because the European Union has the good sense to take a two-pronged approach to accompanying this movement, firstly through its concern to protect consumers' health, whether by harmonising labelling, passing food laws, or creating the European Food Authority, and secondly through its decision to copy the French and Italian examples of special labels to indicate protected appellations of origin and geographical appellations for food products. The editors conclude that a twin approach is also being followed to strengthen common characteristics and ensure the continuity of regional differences by promoting unusual products. Unity in diversity will therefore triumph in the eating habits of Europe!
Michel Theys
*** DORLE MERCHIERS, GERARD SIARY (Eds.): Transmission de la mémoire allemande en Europe centrale et orientale depuis 1945 / Spuren deutscher identität in mittel- und osteuropa seit 1945. Peter Lang (1 Moosstrasse, Postfach 350, CH-2542 Pieterlen. Tel: (41-32) 3761717 - Fax: 3761727 - email: info@peterlang.com - Internet: http://www.peterlang.com ).'Convergences' series, No. 61. 2011, 382 pp, €62-50. ISBN 978-3-0343-0655-3.
The granting of the 2009 Nobel Prize for Literature to Herta Müller reminded people that there is a lively minority of Germans living in other countries in central and Eastern Europe, but do the traces of German presence in these countries suggest a continued presence of German identity? This is the question answered in this book arising from an international conference organised by the Germanic Studies and Research Centre at Paul Valéry University in Montpellier, France, in the autumn of 2006. It examines German memories in the form of analysis, eye-witness reports, literature, film, sociological approaches, examination of heritage sites and other urban areas. In the section on the immediate post 1945-period, the book examines the deportation of Germans east of the Oder River and the Neisse, Laëtitia Michel looking more specifically at tension between Germans and Poles following the Federation of the Deported's desire to set up an 'Anti-Deportation Centre' in Berlin. Most essays are in French with a summary in English, French and German.
(MT)
*** PA NAYIOTA TSATSOU: Digital Divides in Europe. Culture, Politics and the Western-Southern Divide. Peter Lang (see above). Interdisciplinary Communication Studies series, No. 6. 2011, 285 pp, €41-70. ISBN 978-3-0343-0189-3.
Lecturer in media and communications at Swansea University in the UK, Greek national Panayiota Tsatsou looks in this book at the reasons for the digital divide in Europe. Basing her analysis on Greece and Portugal in the south and the United Kingdom in the west, she moves beyond economic, technical and infrastructure factors to explain the digital divide in terms of society, culture, policy and legislation, leading her to the conclusion that the West-South divide in Europe is based on a complex range of social, cultural, political and regulatory factors, with Greece at the bottom of the scale and the United Kingdom at the top. The book is studded with policy recommendations for the European information society as a whole.
(PBo)
*** ROBERT LEVINE: Free Ride. How the Internet is destroying the culture business and how the culture business can fight back. The Bodley Head (Ramdon House, 20 Vauxhall Bridge Road, London SW1V 2SA, UK. Tel: (44-20) 78408400 - Fax: 79320077 - Internet: http://www.bodleyhead.co.uk ). 2011, 307 pp, £18-99. ISBN 978-1-847-92148-2.
Active in the media for many a year, Robert Levine points an accusing finger at the internet in this perfectly documented book, showing how the optimistic vision of the 1990's of a free information society has turned into a nightmare with technology companies seizing hold of the goldmine and grabbing far more powers than record companies, studios and cinemas could even dream of having in the past. The way the author sees it, film producers, television companies, newspapers and publishing houses are now being deprived of the cash they need to compete with technology giants like Apple and Google, which have encroached on the old areas of culture without respecting the customs. The author argues that 'anti-copyright activism' by Google and other mammoth players is jeopardising laws that have been in place for centuries to protect individual artists and other journalists. Walter Isaacson, chair of the Aspen Institute, comments in this connection: 'One of the great issues of the digital age is how the people who create content will be able to make a living.' It is wonderful to see Robert Levine having the audacity to suggest: 'The European regulators the media business loves to hate could save the Internet by providing a balance to the power of U.S. companies like Google and Apple.'
(MT)
*** MARC MAUFORT, CAROLINE DE WAGTER (Eds.): Old Margins and New Centers / Anciennes marges et nouveaux centres. The European Literary Heritage in an Age of Globalisation / L'héritage littéraire européen dans une ère de globalisation. Presses Interuniversitaires Européennes / Peter Lang (see above). "New Comparative Poetics / Nouvelle poétique comparatiste" series, No. 9. 2011, 346 pp, €36-90. ISBN 978-90-5201-745-7.
With more than a hint of irony, the title of this book suggests that in this age of rampant globalisation, 'former European cultural centres could become tomorrow's new literary margins.' Following on from an international conference in at the Université Libre de Bruxelles in 2009, comparative literature experts look in this book from a new angle at the impact of European cultural and literary traditions on post-colonial, contemporary literature not only in parts of the world once seen as on the fringes of Europe, but also in the old cultural centres of Europe itself. No fewer than twenty-six leading specialists pool their wisdom and re-examine the ideas of margin, centre, globalisation and Eurocentrism of identity in this age of rapid change induced by the Internet.…
(PBo)
*** KAMILA CIEPIELA (Ed.): Identity through a Language Lens. Peter Lang (see above). Lódz Studies in Language series, No. 23. 2011, 229 pp, €44-70. ISBN 978-3-631-61602-4.
This collection of essays by sociolinguistic researchers looks at how personal identity is made visible and intelligible by authors through language. Entitled 'Emblematic identities,' the first part of the book focuses on the construction of self-definitions based on various forms of group identities, including national and ethnic identities. The second section examines multicultural identities, with the researchers considering the negotiation of identities in multicultural contexts involving relations of power, using case studies from Europe and the Americas. The final section looks at emergent identities and comprises a series of empirical cases based on careful reading of texts whose identities have been articulated and negotiated.
(PBo)
*** MARTIN FORSTNER, HANNELORE LEE-JAHNKE (Eds.): CIUTI-Forum 2010. Global Governance and Intercultural Dialogue: Translation and Interpreting in a new Geopolitical Setting. Peter Lang (see above). 2011, 408 pp, €61-90. ISBN 978-3-0343-0657-7.
The annual CIUTI Forums aim to put academia in touch with business in order to raise awareness about new discoveries emerging from academic disciplines like economics, politics, law, medicine and communications that may be service to Applied Translation Studies. This book gives an accurate account of the CIUTI Forum in Geneva in 2010 which examined the way that the big political and economic blocs that have emerged over recent years, like the European Union, Mercosur and ASEAN, are economically interconnected. Some speakers argued that attention should not focus solely on business connections with Sergej Ordzhonikidze calling for 'cultural globalisation' not to be neglected any more than 'intercultural dialogue' that it demands. In a similar vein, anthropologist Jean Tardif defends the view that realism rather than utopia demands that we consider cultural pluralism as the political response of a new strategic imperative recognising cultural differences and treating them in a different manner from the old confrontation models. He says this confirms the ever greater importance of the role of interpreters and translators who, over and above the demands of their profession, are also required to take social responsibilities on board as active promoters of cultural exchange. Several representatives of professional bodies confirmed the important role played by translators and interpreters against the backdrop of globalisation, some talks considering changes faced by the two professions. The head of the European Commission's interpreting department, Marco Benedetti, and Pinuccia Contino of the Commission's translation department, explained how their departments fitted in to the new political and economic landscape, paying particular attention to the emergence of a 'European language industry.' Other essays look at the changes observed in the Russian Federation and in Asia, not to mention the controversial subject of the huge number of languages in South Africa. An essay by Prof. Forstner of Mainz University the question asks what language should be chosen in addition to English by translation departments to best meet the needs of world trade.
(PBo)