Europe and Its Interior Other(s)

Book excerpt: Who were and who are the European other(s), and how have their socio-cultural circumstances been aesthetically expressed and discussed in works of literature and art in European history? Members of the interdisciplinary group of researchers "The Borders of Europe" address these questions in this book and shed new light on the notion of European transnational identity, self-conscience and exclusion. Making a mental, space-time journey across and beyond internal and external borders of Europe - moving from medieval times to the present, from Istanbul to the northernmost tip of Norway - the authors show how the dangerous dynamics of othering, estrangement, intolerance and hatred have become an inherent part of the continent's history.