Kalmar, Ivan's Books

Early Orientalism

Imagined Islam and the Notion of Sublime Power

By: Ivan Kalmar

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Early Orientalism

Imagined Islam and the Notion of Sublime Power

By: Ivan Kalmar

The history of western notions about Islam is of obvious scholarly as well as popular interest today. This book investigates Christian images of the Muslim Middle East, focusing on the period from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment, when the nature of divine as well as human power was under particularly intense debate in the West. Ivan Kalmar explores how the controversial notion of submission to ultimate authority has in the western world been discussed with reference to Islam’s alleged recommendation to obey, unquestioningly, a merciless Allah in heaven and a despotic government on earth. He discusses how Abrahamic faiths – Christianity and Judaism as much as Islam – demand devotion to a sublime power, with the faith that this power loves and cares for us, a concept that brings with it the fear that, on the contrary, this power only toys with us for its own enjoyment. For such a power, Kalmar borrows Slavoj Zizek’s term "obscene father". He discusses how this describes exactly the western image of the Oriental despot - Allah in heaven, and the various sultans, emirs and ayatollahs on earth – and how these despotic personalities of imagined Muslim society function as a projection, from the West on to the Muslim Orient, of an existential anxiety about sublime power. Making accessible academic debates on the history of Christian perceptions of Islam and on Islam and the West, this book is an important addition to the existing literature in the areas of Islamic studies, religious history and philosophy.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

223

Publisher

Routledge

Published Date

ISBN 10

1136578900

ISBN 13

9781136578908

White But Not Quite

Central Europe’s Illiberal Revolt

By: Kalmar, Ivan

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

White But Not Quite

Central Europe’s Illiberal Revolt

By: Kalmar, Ivan

Since the ‘migration crisis’ of 2016, long-simmering tensions between the Western members of the European Union and its ‘new’ Eastern members – Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary – have proven to be fertile ground for rebellion against liberal values and policies. In this startling and original book Ivan Kalmar argues that Central European illiberalism is a misguided response to the devastating effects of global neoliberalism, which arose from the area’s brutal transition to capitalism in the 1990s. Kalmar argues that dismissive attitudes towards ‘Eastern Europeans’ are a form of racism and explores the close relation between racism towards Central Europeans and racism by Central Europeans: a people white but not quite.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

334

Publisher

Policy Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1529213622

ISBN 13

9781529213621

Early Orientalism

Imagined Islam and the Notion of Sublime Power

By: Ivan Kalmar

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Early Orientalism

Imagined Islam and the Notion of Sublime Power

By: Ivan Kalmar

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

223

Publisher

Routledge

Published Date

ISBN 10

1136578900

ISBN 13

9781136578908

Illegal Alphabets and Adult Biliteracy

Latino Migrants Crossing the Linguistic Border

By: Tomás Mario Kalmar

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Illegal Alphabets and Adult Biliteracy

Latino Migrants Crossing the Linguistic Border

By: Tomás Mario Kalmar

Illegal Alphabets and Adult Biliteracy--based on four years of intensive fieldwork in a small rural community in Southern Illinois--is a landmark work in the area of adult literacy, combining insights from linguistics, anthropology, literacy studies, and education in a culturally situated exploration of the language and literacy practices of migrant workers. As such, it is a substantive contribution to the linguistic study of indigenous literacies; to sociocultural approaches to language, learning, and literacy; and to ethnographic and critical approaches to education. The book begins with a true story about "illegal aliens" who, in the summer of 1980, in the town of Cobden, Illinois, decided to help each other write down English como de veras se oye--the way it really sounds. The focus is on why and how they did this, what they actually wrote down, and what happened to their texts. The narrative then shifts to how and why the strategies adult immigrants actually use in order to cope with English in the real world seem to have little in common with those used by students in publicly funded bilingual and ESL classrooms. The book concludes with a discussion of the ideal of a universal alphabet, about the utopian claim that anyone can use a canonical set of 26 letters to reduce to script any language, ever spoken by anyone, anywhere, at any time. This claim is so familiar that it is easy to overlook how much undocumented intellectual labor was invested over the centuries by those who successfully carried the alphabet across the border from one language to the next. From this undocumented labor, without which none of us would now be able to read, everyone profits. To make his story and his argument as accessible as possible, Kalmar steers clear of jargon and excessive technical terminology. At the same time, however, readers who are familiar with any of the current postmodern discourses on the social construction of symbolic forms will be able to bring such discourses to bear on what he has to say about the game, the discourse, and the scene of writing that constitute the focus of his theoretical analysis. When people today argue about "illegal aliens" in the United States, probably the last question on their minds is the one to which this book is devoted: how do "illegal aliens" use an alphabet they already know in order to chart the speech sounds of colloquial English? It is the author's hope that readers will interpret his story as a parable with serious political implications. Illegal Alphabets and Adult Biliteracy is a compelling, vitally relevant book for researchers, students, practitioners, and anyone else interested in language and literacy in social, cultural, and political contexts, including bilingual and ESL education, second-language acquisition and development, applied and sociolinguistics, multicultural education, educational anthropology, and qualitative research.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

142

Publisher

Routledge

Published Date

ISBN 10

1135656908

ISBN 13

9781135656904

White But Not Quite

Central Europe’s Illiberal Revolt

By: Kalmar, Ivan

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

White But Not Quite

Central Europe’s Illiberal Revolt

By: Kalmar, Ivan

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

334

Publisher

Policy Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1529213614

ISBN 13

9781529213614

Book's by Kalmar, Ivan

Early Orientalism

Early Orientalism

White But Not Quite

White But Not Quite

Early Orientalism

Early Orientalism

Illegal Alphabets and Adult Biliteracy

Illegal Alphabets and Adult Biliteracy

White But Not Quite

White But Not Quite

Username

Password

Username

Password

Password again

Birthday

Email