7 books match the query 'Otherness'
Caroline Vander Stichele
SBL Press, 2012
Barbara Johnson
Duke University Press, 2014

Hamdi A. Hassan
Pluto Press, 2005
Focusing on the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, Hamdi Hassan offers a balanced examination of the motivation of the Iraqi polity and the conditions which accelerated and facilitated the decision to invade. Critical of the traditional approach of most Middle East studies, The Iraqi Invasion of Kuwait offers a counterpoint to Western interpretations of this key event in the contemporary history of the Middle East.
Hassan examines how Saddam Hussein assessed and responded to American and Israeli intentions after the invasion, the reaction of other Arab states, and the unprecedented grassroots support for the Iraqi leadership. In this context, the author examines the social structure of Iraqi society – families, clans and regional alliances – and the importance of Ba’athism. Hassan also examines the political structure of the country, relating the identity of Arabism – the religion and language which is associated closely with the Pan Arabist ideals – to Iraqi foreign policy.
Xin Liu
University of Michigan Press, 2002

Edited by JIANG Jiehong
Intellect Books, 2021
Louiza Odysseos
University of Minnesota Press, 2007
In this pioneering book, Louiza Odysseos argues that debates about ethnic conflict, human rights, and the viability of multicultural communities all revolve around the question of coexistence. Yet, issues of coexistence have not been adequately addressed by international relations. Instead of being regarded as a question, “coexistence” is a term whose meaning is considered self-evident.
The Subject of Coexistence traces the institutional neglect of coexistence to the ontological commitments of international relations as a modern social science predicated on conceptions of modern subjectivity. This reliance leads to the assumption that coexistence means little more than the social and political copresence of individuals, a premise that occludes the roles of otherness in the constitution of the self. Countering this reliance necessitates the examination of how existence itself is coexistential from the start.
Odysseos opens up the possibility of a coexistential ontology, drawing on Martin Heidegger and his interlocutors, in which selfhood can be rethought beyond subjectivism, reinstating coexistence as a question for global politics—away from the restrictive discursive parameters of the modern subject.
Louiza Odysseos is senior lecturer in international relations at the University of Sussex.
Fernando Arenas
University of Minnesota Press, 2003
Forges a new understanding of how these two Lusophone nations are connected
The closely entwined histories of Portugal and Brazil remain key references for understanding developments—past and present—in either country. Accordingly, Fernando Arenas considers Portugal and Brazil in relation to one another in this exploration of changing definitions of nationhood, subjectivity, and utopias in both cultures. Examining the two nations’s shared language and histories as well as their cultural, social, and political points of divergence, Arenas pursues these definitive changes through the realms of literature, intellectual thought, popular culture, and political discourse.
Both Brazil and Portugal are subject to the economic, political, and cultural forces of postmodern globalization. Arenas analyzes responses to these trends in contemporary writers including José Saramago, Caio Fernando Abreu, Maria Isabel Barreno, Vergílio Ferreira, Clarice Lispector, and Maria Gabriela Llansol. Ultimately, Utopias of Otherness shows how these writers have redefined the concept of nationhood, not only through their investment in utopian or emancipatory causes such as Marxist revolution, women’s liberation, or sexual revolution, but also by shifting their attention to alternative modes of conceiving the ethical and political realms.