Change search
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • apa.csl
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf
Quo Vadis Europe?
Karlstad University, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (starting 2013), Department of Geography, Media and Communication (from 2013).ORCID iD: 0000-0002-1748-3884
2023 (English)In: Geografiska Annaler. Series B, Human Geography, ISSN 0435-3684, E-ISSN 1468-0467Article in journal (Refereed) Epub ahead of print
Abstract [en]

The present article offers a trenchant criticism of the imaginative geographies of 'Europe' using a Pred inspired methodology. The essay strikes at the mythos of Europa as the vanguard of humanity, and enumerates many of the 'dirty tricks' that project the singular as confirmation of the universal. It aligns with the critique of the present in the manner of Allan Pred's critical takes on Europe and deconstruction of the mythos of Europe. With Nietzsche's takes on 'philosophical laughter' as a cue, the essay offers playful parodies on the narcissistic discourses of Europe's historical mission or purpose, its essence/identity, and its place in history. My critique is thus an instance of postcolonial laughter. Critique of historicism and 'European reason' are recurrent themes in Pred's work. Historicism places European humanity as history's prime (favourite) subject, culminating in the infamous yet pompous 'end of history' thesis popularized by Fukuyama, of which Pred was highly critical of. In my reading, Pred's playful takes on Fukuyama's folly, are inspired by postcolonial laughter. Postcolonial laughter is deployed here as an affirmative response to the European negation of the other's being. I use by turn satire and irony, by turn parody and the grotesque to strike at the heart of the mythos of Europe and its 'dirty tricks'. Postcolonial laughter unsettles the hubris and narcissism underlying discourses of Europe's mission/moralism as the vanguard of humanity. Postcolonial laughter is attuned to Pred's 'restless geographies'.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Taylor & Francis, 2023.
Keywords [en]
Europe, imaginative geographies, narcissism, origo, telos, postcolonial laughter, Alan Pred, Edmund Husserl, Friedrich Nietzsche
National Category
History of Ideas
Research subject
Human Geography
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:kau:diva-94495DOI: 10.1080/04353684.2023.2193346ISI: 000963760600001Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85152355788OAI: oai:DiVA.org:kau-94495DiVA, id: diva2:1754075
Available from: 2023-05-02 Created: 2023-05-02 Last updated: 2023-05-08Bibliographically approved

Open Access in DiVA

fulltext(1678 kB)49 downloads
File information
File name FULLTEXT01.pdfFile size 1678 kBChecksum SHA-512
32a51e9acf3c95bfee4b4c9249978e770e57eb92512c3a7e9ff283bd65716733cbdd4bb37c5e0ea043540bbff9ada15ec95150bf2d1735cdcf03f24c822dfe96
Type fulltextMimetype application/pdf

Other links

Publisher's full textScopus

Authority records

Tesfahuney, Mekonnen

Search in DiVA

By author/editor
Tesfahuney, Mekonnen
By organisation
Department of Geography, Media and Communication (from 2013)
In the same journal
Geografiska Annaler. Series B, Human Geography
History of Ideas

Search outside of DiVA

GoogleGoogle Scholar
Total: 49 downloads
The number of downloads is the sum of all downloads of full texts. It may include eg previous versions that are now no longer available

doi
urn-nbn

Altmetric score

doi
urn-nbn
Total: 111 hits
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • apa.csl
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf