We had not expected to be completing an assignment about Eurovision performances at a time when one participating country has just invaded another without provocation.
Our thoughts are first and foremost with the people of Ukraine – and also with the many Russian citizens who oppose the actions of their own government.
In the last few weeks, we’ve been analyzing different performances in all sorts of ways, thinking about things like language choices, metaphors, genres, symbolism, visual devices, and so on. We’ll be touching on some of those items in our analyses.
We’ve also been asked to think about what concepts help us understand those performances, including essentialism, (auto-)Orientalism, cultural appropriation, cosmopolitanism, pink-washing, and homonationalism (and many, many more!). Also up for discussion is the question of representation, be it about race, gender identity, sexual orientation, and the many other intersections of our social identities.
As with the last post, we've been asked to use in-text citations as well as references using the APA system. We suggest you skip over them while reading - unless you're excited to learn more!
What are we missing? What good sources can you recommend? Did you witness these performances in person and have background knowledge to share? Your feedback is appreciated, so please leave your constructive comments at the end of our posts. For this second written paper, we have the option of revising the text based on feedback (by March 10), so your thoughts are especially welcome!
Once again, here are our blog sites, along with the year of the song we're each analyzing:
Armenia 2017 | Azerbaijan 2021 | Belarus 2019 | Belgium 2011 | Bulgaria 2009 | Croatia 2021 | France 2019 | Georgia 2015 | Hungary 2015 | Lithuania 2021 | Moldova 2009 | Montenegro 2012 | Poland 2019 | Portugal 2009 | Romania 2013 | Russia 2021 | Serbia 2018 | Slovenia 2014 | Spain 2019 | Ukraine 2021
Commenting Armenia's 2017 post: you did an excellent analysis on Armenian campaigns on the ESC and the country's conjuncture. Congratulations!
ReplyDeleteBut I have a tip to you: take a look at purple during Armenian performances on ESC. Purple is the national color and appears in all Armenian performances (including 2017, as you pointed out), as a way of projecting nationalism and a sense of community for Armenian Diaspora, which will recognize itself as Armenian (and its roots) in a performance.
Best Wishes,
Prof. Ricardo Rios, MA.
Marketing and Communications School, UNIPAC, Brazil
Thank you! We'll be sure to pass this on to the student who's looking at Armenia this term.
DeleteI have some sources y'all might want to look at, not just as direct sources for your own papers, but also a jumping point to find other works that could help build y'all's analyses. If you're unable to access these through your institution's library, let me know (on Twitter @mr_gerbear or e-mail at gerry.avelino at gmail) and I'll help you get these sources.
ReplyDeleteCarniel, Jessica. 2015. Skirting the issue: finding queer and geopolitical belonging at the Eurovision Song Contest http://www.contemporarysee.org/en/carniel
A fantastic look at the intersection between the expression of sexuality and geopolitical identity, specifically in Eurovision.
Sieg, Katrin. 2012. Cosmopolitan empire: Central and Eastern Europeans at the Eurovision Song Contest
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1367549412450639
Sieg compares Poland 2003 and Ukraine 2010 and talks about what those songs signal when it comes to Central and Eastern European identity in the face of cosmopolitan Western Europe.
Iglesias, Julien. 2018. Eurovision song contest and identity crisis in Moldova
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/nationalities-papers/article/abs/eurovision-song-contest-and-identity-crisis-in-moldova/1AA0F75786CEEAD686ECD07D9DE55F00
This is specific to Moldova but a lot of the points in here are adaptable to much of Eastern Europe: How does a song contest help a nation figure out its values and identity, especially after the fall of communism?
Ulbricht, Alexej et al. 2015. Queer to be kind: Exploring Western media discourses about the “Eastern bloc” during the 2007 and 2014 Eurovision Song Contests
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/280085959_Queer_to_be_kind_Exploring_Western_media_discourses_about_the_Eastern_bloc_during_the_2007_and_2014_Eurovision_Song_Contests
This is another paper examining queer identity and the East-West divide in each other's perceptions of queer identity, looking in particular at Austria 2015 and Serbia 2007. "We employ the concept of homonationalism to interrogate inconsistent Western media discourses: the East was depicted as a site of homophobia and the West as a site of tolerance in 2014, whilst the queer aesthetic / identity of Šerifović was largely overlooked in 2007." Super interesting.
Jordan, Paul. 2014. The Modern Fairy Tale: Nation Branding, National Identity and the Eurovision Song Contest in Estonia
https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/33429
Lots of really in-depth stuff not just about Estonian national identity and Eurovision but about Eurovision and national identity in general. There's also a chapter that looks at Ukraine 2004 and Finland 2006 in a section at the end.
Motschenbacher, Heiko. 2016. Language, Normativity and Europeanisation: Discursive Evidence from the Eurovision Song Contest
https://link.springer.com/book/10.1057/978-1-137-56301-9
If you want a perspective from linguistics about Eurovision, Heiko Motschenbacher is your guy. This book looks at language and nationalism, language choice, code-switching between two languages, and a whole lot of good stuff about what Eurovision shows us about language and identity. This book doens't just look at a particular country, either, but pretty much all of them? So you'll be sure to pick up some insight.
These are great - thank you! We've read and discussed both Jess Carniel's and Katrin Sieg's articles in class, and Paul Jordan's book is in our library. The prof has a personal copy of Motschenbacher, if we want to go all linguistic. We'll have to dig into some of these other ones, too! Thanks again.
ReplyDelete