Completed Projects
Project
The power of satire: cultural boundaries contested
01.08.2009
to 01.08.2013
General project description
The power of satire investigates the cultural impact of satire in different countries, different media and different time periods.
The research project proposes a strategic intervention into the deadlocked scholarly debate on satire. In this debate satire has been mainly considered as an 'artistic', particularly a 'literary' genre per se – which has proved to be an unproductive approach. We consider satire as an intercultural mode of performance that is intermedially charge; A mode with the power to contest cultural boundaries in different communities and in different periods of time, a mode that travels between multiple media and challenges traditional media oppositions. The project concentrates on one fundamental issue: migrating from one medium to another - and, as such, using the creative tensions and interactions between them - how has the cultural impact of satire been framed and conditioned?
Role
Researcher
Funding
NWO grant
Project members UU
External project members
- prof. dr. Frans Grijzenhout
The main focus of my research has been, since my PhD-thesis of 1992, Islam in Western Europe, with special attention for Turkish Islam. This focus on Turkish Islam has led me to study both the Turkish migrants in Europe, and the religious diversity in Turkey itself. To this area, in which the study of power relations dominates the academic debate, I try to concentrate on the hermeneutics and the contextual interpretations of religious sources.
My interest in religious ideas and their reinterpretation has developed into research on changes in pious literature, like the genre of the Stories of the Prophets.