UNDERGRADUATE

 

Module Description 

The course is concerned with a range of representational practices, their relation to power, and their legacy in the present day. It provides an introduction and overview of key debates about visual aspects of cultural encounters since 1492 and how postcolonial theory can help elucidate them. The course combines empirical case studies with the most important work in postcolonial theory. Content includes the visual representation of the New World through woodcuts and copper plate engravings (de Bry etc) and the way these reproduced stereotypes and/or ruptured them; debates about the destruction of neo-classical aesthetics in the South Pacific in the late 18th century; visual ‘Orientalism’ in both West Asia and South Asia; the visual representation of slavery; debates around the politics of photography; and how the legacy of these representational traditions might be engaged and at the same time “unlearned” (Azoulay).  

 

Module Content:

UG has a two hour lecture element and a one hour tutorial. 

Teaching content introduces students to world historical perspective on cultural encounters that is both historically deep and geographically expansive. 

Develop a sophisticated understanding of key work in postcolonial theory, stressing debates within what is often presented as a homogeneous perspective (eg Bhabha versus Said; Azoulay versus Tagg). 

Bring anthropological perspectives to material that is often treated as the preserve of Art History or Global History.

 

Learning Outcomes: 

After the course students will have an understanding of: 

The main aspects of global colonial and postcolonial history, being able to differentiate between different regional and national practices and experiences.  
	Develop a knowledge of representational techniques and reproductive technologies (from woodcuts to engraving to lithography to photography and film). Also develop better finessed vocabularies for describing the fusion of aesthetics and politics.   
	An introductory knowledge of a range of postcolonial approaches and how they related to broader theoretical positions (eg Said in relation to Foucault, Bhabha in relation to Derrida etc). 
	A broader knowledge of the history of anti-colonial resistance and insurrection (eg through the study of Guaman Poma, Toussaint Louverture, Sitting Bull, and Bhagat Singh) and its visual dimensions. 
	A more nuanced understanding of the ways in which “knowledge: generally, and anthropological knowledge in particular has been central to, but also resistant to, colonialism. 
 

Delivery Method:

The course will be delivered through weekly illustrated 2 hour lecture designed to introduce unfamiliar material to students. These will be paired with a weekly 1 hour tutorial which will focus on creative student presentations that are designed to bring student-led perspectives on a particular problematic concerning the politics of visual representation. Where possible and appropriate students will be encouraged to visit permanent and temporary exhibitions reproducing and/or critiquing the traditions and issues engaged by the course (eg Pacific Gallery at National Maritime  Museum; temporary displays at Autograph ABP).

 

Additional Information :

There will be a mid-term illustrated quiz designed to encourage students to enlarge their empirical knowledge of materials considered in the course. 

Collaborative student presentations in the seminars will be given detailed feedback by the course tutor.

 

 

 

POSTGRADUATE 

 

Module Description 

The course is concerned with a range of representational practices, their relation to power, and their legacy in the present day. It provides an introduction and overview of key debates about visual aspects of cultural encounters since 1492 and how postcolonial theory can help elucidate them. The course combines empirical case studies with the most important work in postcolonial theory. Content includes the visual representation of the New World through woodcuts and copper plate engravings (de Bry etc) and the way these reproduced stereotypes and/or ruptured them; debates about the destruction of neo-classical aesthetics in the South Pacifc in the late 18th century; visual ‘Orientalism’ in both West Asia and South Asia; the visual representation of slavery; debates around the politics of photography; and how the legacy of these representational traditions might be engaged and at the same time “unlearned” (Azoulay).  

 

Module Content:

Teaching content introduces students to world historical perspective on cultural encounters that is both historically deep and geographically expansive. 

Develop a sophisticated understanding of key work in postcolonial theory, stressing debates within what is often presented as a homogeneous perspective (eg Bhabha versus Said; Azoulay versus Tagg). 

Bring anthropological perspectives to material that is often treated as the preserve of Art History or Global History.

 

Learning Outcomes: 

After the course students will have an understanding of: 

The main aspects of global colonial and postcolonial history, being able to differentiate between different regional and national practices and experiences.  
	Have a new sensibility concerning ‘contextual’ versus ‘presentist’ (Q. Skinner) interpretations and critiques of colonial and counter-colonial discourses (eg through reference to Las Casas) 
	Develop an enhanced knowledge of representational techniques and reproductive technologies (from woodcuts to engraving to lithography to photography and film). Also develop better finessed vocabularies for describing the fusion of aesthetics and politics.   
	A knowledge of a range of postcolonial approaches and how they related to broader theoretical positions (eg Said in relation to Foucault, Bhabha in relation to Derrida etc). 
	A broader knowledge of the history of anti-colonial resistance and insurrection (eg through the study of Guaman Poma, Toussaint Louverture, Sitting Bull, and Bhagat Singh) and its visual dimensions. 
	A more nuanced understanding of the ways in which “knowledge: generally, and anthropological knowledge in particular has been central to, but also resistant to, colonialism. 
 

Delivery Method:

The course will be delivered through weekly illustrated 2 hour lecture designed to introduce unfamiliar material to students. These will be paired with a weekly 2 hour seminar which will focus on creative student presentations that are designed to bring student-led perspectives on a particular problematic concerning the politics of visual representation. Where possible and appropriate students will be encouraged to visit permanent and temporary exhibitions reproducing and/or critiquing the traditions and issues engaged by the course (eg. Pacific Gallery at National Maritime  Museum; temporary displays at Autograph ABP).  

 

Additional Information :

There will be a mid-term illustrated quiz designed to encourage students to enlarge their empirical knowledge of materials considered in the course. 

Collaborative student presentations in the seminars will be given detailed feedback by the course tutor.

 

 Indicative readings:

 

Martin Jay and Sumathi Ramasamy eds. Empires of Vision. Duke University Press.2014

Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui. Ch’ixinakax Utxiwa: On Practices and Discourses of Decolonisation. Translated by Molly Geidel. Cambridge: Polity, 2020.

Jorge Canizares-Esguerra How to Write the History of the New World: Histories, Epistemologies, and Identities in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World. Stanford University Press 2001.

Anthony Grafton, New Worlds, Ancient Texts: The Power of Tradition and the Shock of Discovery Belknap: Cambridge Mass. 1992.

Bernard Smith European Vision in the South Pacific New Haven:Yale University Press 1985, illustrated 2nd edition

Edward Said Culture and Imperialism 1994 Vintage

Robert Young White Mythologies: Writing History and the West 1990

Homi Bhabha The Location of Culture London: Routledge,1994.

Serge Gruzinski Painting the Conquest: The Mexican Indians and the European Renaissance Paris: Unesco/Flammarion 1992

Rolena Adorno Guaman Poma: Writing and Resistance in Colonial Peru University of Texas Press  1986

Ernest van den Boogaart Civil and Corrupt Asia: Image and Text in the Itinerario and the Icones of Jan Huygen van Linschoten University of Chicago Press, 2003.

Timothy Mitchell Colonizing Egypt Cambridge University Press 1988

Butler, Judith. Frames of War: When Is Life Grievable? London: Verso, 2009.

Ariella Azoulay. Civil Imagination: A Political Ontology of Photography. Translated by Louise Bethlehem. Verso, 2012.

Ariella Azoulay. The Civil Contract of Photography. Translated by Rela Mazali and Ruvik Danieli. NY:Zone 2008.

Fosso, Samuel. Autoportrait. Göttingen: Steidl, 2020.

Miyarrka Media. Phone & Spear: A Yuta Anthropology. London: Goldsmiths Press, 2019.