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Follow on Google News | Captured Pirates: The Pirate Figure on the Banners of Various IdeologiesThe portrayal of pirates in transatlantic literature is the subject of a project currently being conducted by the Austrian Science Fund FWF.
By: Austrian Science Fund FWF Literature and popular culture are full of references to pirates as revolutionary adventurers and criminals prepared to use violence. The traditional portrayal of a character with a wooden leg, bandana and a parrot hides the complexity of the figure. This is because the outward appearance often conceals contradictory views of national, cultural and gender-specific identity. The figure of the pirate is therefore now the subject of a more in-depth literary examination as part of a project conducted at the Department of English and American Studies of the University of Vienna. Outlawed Like Jack Sparrow The project takes as its starting point the situation during the golden age of piracy in the late 17th century. This was a time when the political and social situation of the European colonial powers and the future United States was characterised by great turmoil and crisis. Dr. Alexandra Ganser, who heads the project, explains: "At that time, from a legal perspective, the pirate was seen as an intangible subject for national laws, as an outlaw. During an era of newly discovered and fiercely contested territories and colonies, this special status made the pirate a popular figure. His spirit was frequently invoked to justify people's own ideas about the legitimacy of possessions, territories and their populations." This project is now examining how major political and social crisis scenarios are discussed in the literature on piracy. One of the first of these scenarios is the discovery of America itself. The literature from around 1700 often presents pirates as explorers and their plundering as valuable contributions to the European empire of knowledge. The crisis of the separation from the British Crown to the Declaration of Independence is also reflected in the portrayal of pirates as heroic, patriotic fighters, another focus of the study. The pirate, however, also had negative associations, for example in the portrayal of England as a pirate, who tries to deny America its natural right to independence. The aim of the study, which has already begun, is to determine how the figure of the pirate serves to underpin and legitimize various political views. The project will also look at the subject in a present-day context: it aims to show how piracy is linked to issues of intellectual property and copyright infringement, for example, or with unconventional political parties. Textual Undercurrents The methodological approach used, known as "contrapuntal" The FWF project shows how research in social and cultural studies facilitates the decoding and classification of attitudes hidden behind texts and figures considered to be familiar. The complex meaning of such texts for the formation of a national and cultural sense of belonging demonstrates the importance of the literary and cultural imaginary for society at large. End
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