Welcome to the Imagologica website, dedicated to the critical analysis of cultural stereotypes. Imagology, a specialism originally developed in the discipline of Comparative Literature, studies how certain temperamental characteristics are stereotypically imputed to certain nationalities.
The resulting “ethnotypes” (frivolous French, passionate Hungarians, thorough-going Germans) are commonplaces which change over time and migrate between genres and countries. While they have little or no empirical basis, they do exercise a real influence in how people judge the world and their position in it. Ethnotypes are both a complex culture-historical phenomenon and an important part of nationalistic prejudice and ethnocentrism, and stand in need of critical analysis for both reason.
More information under the About Imagology tab.
On 26-28 June 2019, an imagological conference will be hosted at the Center of Human Sciences of the University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn (Poland). The conference title is Image as a topic of communicative theory, cultural anrhropology and text semiotics. We will post the URL of the conference website as soon as it is onlne. A PDF can be downloaded here.
A conference New perspectives on Imagology will be held at the University of Vienna on 3-5 April 2018. The conference website is here, and the Call for Papers here.
The imagology site will maintain a blog of contemporary manifestations of national essentialism – the spread of ethnotypes and the belief in ethnicity/“culture” as a social explanation. Many of these are diffuse, ephemeral, “banal”. Hence the need to capture and document them.
The electronic journal Iberic@l: Revue d’études ibériques et ibéro-américaines, published for the Institut d’Études hispaniques at the Sorbonne, has published a theme issue (nr 10, Autumn 2016) edited by Géraldine Galeote: La construction des identités nationales depuis une perspective transnationale. Iberic@l is online at http://iberical.paris-sorbonne.fr.
A Conference on National stereotyping and cultural identities in recent European crises will be held at the “Long Room Hub”, Trinity College Dublin, on 09-11 March 2017. It will investigate how recent European crises such as the Euro crisis, the Ukraine conflict, the threat of terrorism, increased migration, the rise of right wing, populist neo-nationalism across Europe and most recently the looming Brexit have revived and used centuries-old, culturally constructed patterns of national stereotyping and how these have been actualized and instrumentalized in public discourse and political debate.
A fuller descripton and programme is online here.
The bibliography is being completed and updated on an ongoing basis, and older publications are also being worked in by assistant Eva Schouten. We are now nearing the benchmark of 3000 titles and trust an initial completion will have been achieved by the end of the year.