Overview
- Sheds new light on defamiliarization across different languages and media, from novels to memes
- Explores the interplay of the ‘strange’ and the ‘familiar’ in relation to populism, migration and the climate crisis
- Combines theoretical insights from New Formalism, Posthumanism, Post- and Decolonial Studies, among others
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About this book
Variously translated as “estrangement,” “enstrangement” or “defamiliarization,” Viktor Shklovsky’s concept of ostranenie is more relevant than ever. This collection offers new insights into the theories and practices of ostranenie across various languages and cultures, with a particular focus on the 20th and 21st centuries. Our current era is marked by a dramatic redefinition of the normal and the strange, the familiar and the weird. The rise of far-right populism has increasingly normalized xenophobic and nativist stances previously confined to the fringes of the political spectrum. Additionally, the climate crisis has led to the ongoing renegotiation of the concepts of normalcy and emergency amid widespread efforts to adapt to the “new (ab)normal.” Exploring defamiliarization provides a unique perspective to comprehend and question these processes and their profound cultural implications.
Focusing on ostranenie also offers valuable insights into how aesthetic forms serve a political function. Defamiliarization can take on various forms, including retro-futuristic dystopias, stylized films, and darkly humorous cartoons and memes. It can be an effective tool for political activation that relies on formal innovation rather than superficial emotional engagement.
This collection brings together the work of a group of scholars examining defamiliarization across different media. It explores questions such as: How can we differentiate between various forms of defamiliarization and analyze their effects on the reader/viewer? How is defamiliarization connected to the weird, the eerie, or the uncanny? As a result, the collection offers an updated theoretical framework for understanding the wide range of emergent artistic and literary practices of e(n)strangement in the current era and their significant political affordances.
Chapter 6 is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com
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Table of contents (13 chapters)
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Front Matter
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The Strange, the Weird and the Eerie
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Editors and Affiliations
About the editors
Nilgun Bayraktar is Associate Professor of Film History, Theory, and Criticism in the History of Art and Visual Culture Program and Film Program at the California College of the Arts, USA.
Alberto Godioli is Associate Professor in European Culture and Literature at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands, and Programme Director of the Netherlands Research School for Literary Studies.
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Bibliographic Information
Book Title: E(n)stranged: Rethinking Defamiliarization in Literature and Visual Culture
Editors: Nilgun Bayraktar, Alberto Godioli
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-60859-9
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media Studies, Literature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-031-60858-2Published: 25 October 2024
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-031-60861-2Published: 25 October 2025
eBook ISBN: 978-3-031-60859-9Published: 24 October 2024
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XV, 300
Number of Illustrations: 1 b/w illustrations, 34 illustrations in colour
Topics: Media Studies, Audio-Visual Culture, Literary Theory, Arts