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E-book Sharpening the Haze : Visual Essays on Imperial History and Memory

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Penilaian

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In a blog post on a recent trip to a Peruvia n monastery, Sa ra Salem recounts the moment she recognized Andalusia n tiles da ting from the era of Spa nish coloniza tion. Reflecting on this encounter with the lasting ma terial legacy of imperial expa nsion, she concludes tha t “[w]e could tell a nice story ... a bout how a rt travels a nd spreads a nd crosses bounda ries; or, we could ask how a rt comes to be made, by whom, wha t happened to those a rtists, a nd wha t happened to those who the a rt was brought to” (Salem 2019). Salem’s medita tions a re timely, indica tive of a broader expa nsion a nd intensifica tion of conversa tions a bout empires, imperialism, a nd their lasting effects. Today more tha n ever, all of us—especially those who live in territories tha t were once epicentres of imperial power—a re compelled to re-engage with persisting imperial legacies in a va riety of forms a nd fo-rums, including museums, educa tional curricula, a nd geopoli-tics, to decolonize our imagina ries from the enduring power of empire. This book stems directly from the desire to trouble the legacies of empire. Our goal is twofold: to capture the workings of imperial pasts in the present, a nd to produce works tha t chal-lenge empire’s lasting “duress” (Stoler 2016).We sta rt by asking how to depict empire visually. Wha t images might conjure the political, social, a nd aesthetic forma tions of em-pire? As Jay a nd Ra maswa my (2014: 4) note, “empire a nd a rt—or more broadly, power/knowledge a nd visual subjectivities—a re mutually constituted a nd entwined, both in the colonies a nd in the metropole”. With Jay a nd Ra maswa my, we contend tha t em-pire is both a bstract a nd protea n, subject to myriad modula tions a nd embodied in legion ava ta rs. As such, it enta ils a n uncircum-scribed multiplicity of images, a nd ca n only be understood in the plural. Accordingly, our volume exa mines imperialism through the visual essay form, which we understa nd as a series of images juxtaposed with words. With a ttention to the double friction of pictorial depiction—its limita tions in rela tion to its object(s) a nd its open-ended viewership(s)—we address two intertwined facets of the rela tionship between empires a nd images: imperialism as an ideological project of image-making a nd images as a means of chal-lenging empires.Our a im is not simply to intervene in the vast deba tes within the field of visual culture or to suggest new a nalytical directions in the study of imperial history a nd memory. Ra ther, we seek to make visible the “ra nge of ways” in which empire “helps to constitute social rela tions” (De Ma rra is a nd Robb 2013: 4). Ac-cordingly, this volume presents a va riety of visual genres a nd forms, including photographs, illustra ted advertisements, stills from site-specific a rt performa nces a nd films, a nd maps. A sha red ethos a nd critical commitment spa n across a nd unite these different genres: to illumina te the contours of empire’s social worlds a nd its political legacies through the visual essay. This multiplicity of genres a nd visions is purposeful, as it a ims to foster conversa tion between a rtistic a nd academic practice. In doing so, we follow the a rtistic duo Cooking Sessions, who em-ploy the “visual la nguage, identity, typography a nd spa tial design [developed] for colonial propaga nda” to call upon new contribu-tions which “re-present the injustice in imperial legacies” (Cook-ing Sections 2018: 249). In other words, we approach the social mea ning of empire as a historical a nd contempora ry object of memory tha t is multifaceted a nd requires not only a nalytical en-gagement but re-presenta tion in a multiplicity of modes.

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Ketersediaan

Informasi Detail

Judul Seri

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No. Panggil

902 BAR s

Penerbit

London : Ubiquity Press., 2020

Deskripsi Fisik

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Bahasa

English

ISBN/ISSN

9781911529651

Klasifikasi

902

Tipe Isi

text

Tipe Media

computer

Tipe Pembawa

online resource

Edisi

-

Subjek

Miscellany of History

Info Detail Spesifik

-

Pernyataan Tanggungjawab

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Versi lain/terkait

Lampiran Berkas

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