Revolts in Cultural Critique

Rosemarie Buikema
Published by Rowman & Littlefield, December 2020
 

Centered around the relationship between art and political transformation. From Charlottë Bronte and Virginia Woolf, to Marlene van Niekerk and William Kentridge, artists and intellectuals have tried to address the question: How to deal with the legacy of exclusion and oppression? Via substantive works of art, this book examines some of the answers that have emerged to this question, to show how art can put into motion something new and how it can transform social and cultural relations in a sustainable way. In this way, art can function as an effective form of cultural critique.

In the course of this book, a range of artworks are examined, through a postcolonial and feminist lens, in which revolt—both as a theme and as a medium-specific technique or/as critique —is made visible. Time and time again, revolt takes the form of a slow and thorough working through of the position of the individual in relation to her history and her contemporary geopolitical circumstances. It thus becomes evident that renewal and transformation in art and society are most successful when they proceed according to the method of self-reflexive cultural critique; when they do not present themselves as revolution, radical breaks with the past, but rather as processes of revolt in which knowledge of the past is investigated, complemented, corrected, and bent to a new collective will. 

For more information, see here. 

Inward Outward, Critical Archival Engagements with Sounds and Films of Coloniality: A Publication of the 2020 Inward Outward Symposium

Edited by Rachel Somers Miles, Alana Osbourne, Eleni Tzialli and Esther Captain
Published by Inward Outward, January 2021
 

On January 24 and 25, 2020, the first edition of the Inward Outward symposium took place at the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision. Initiated between the KITLV and Sound and Vision, and with the support of the RCMC, Inward Outward brought together archival practitioners, artists, academics, and researchers to explore the status of moving image and sound archives as they intertwine with questions of coloniality, identity and race. Inward Outward, Critical Archival Engagements with Sounds and Films of Coloniality: A Publication of the 2020 Inward Outward Symposium collects different contributions from speakers of the symposium, reiterating and reflecting on the presentations that took place during the 2-day symposium. These contributions interrogate how we might situate ourselves in relation to the materials we work with, and the locations we work from. Across the publication 16 individual contributions unfold, exploring coloniality and questioning what might “decolonizing” the archive look like as it intersects with sound and moving image collections, archival practices, artistic approaches, intimacy, reimagining the archive, and more.

For more information, see here. 

Contemporary Balkan Cinema: Transnational Exchanges and Global Circuits

Edited by Lydia Papadimitriou and Ana Grić
Published by Edinburgh University Press, November 2020
 

The first inclusive collection to examine post-2008 developments in Balkan cinema, this book brings together a number of international scholars to explore its industrial contexts and textual dimensions. With a focus on transnational links, global networks and cross-cultural exchanges, the book addresses the role of national and supranational institutions as well as film festival networks in supporting film production, distribution and reception. It also identifies key characteristics in the subject matter and aesthetics of Balkan films made since the global economic crisis. Through critical and comprehensive country profiles, and with a focus on smaller and underrepresented cinemas from Montenegro, Kosovo, North Macedonia and Albania, the collection argues for the continuing relevance of the concept of ‘Balkan cinema’.




For more information, see here. 

Contemporary Lusophone African Film: Transnational Communities and Alternative Modernities

Edited by Paulo de Medeiros and Livia Apa
Published by Routledge, December 2020
 

Offering a range of critical perspectives on a vibrant body of films, this collection of essays engages with questions specific to the various cinemas and films addressed while putting forward an argument for their inclusion in current debates on world cinema.

The collection brings together 11 chapters by recognized scholars, who analyze a variety of films and videos from Angola, Cape Verde, Guiné-Bissau, and Mozambique. It also includes an interview with Pedro Pimenta, one of the most distinguished African film festival organizers. Drawing on various theoretical perspectives, the volume strives to reverse the relative invisibility that has afflicted these cinemas, arguing that most, if not all, Lusophone films are transnational in all aspects of production, acting, and reception. The initial three chapters sketch broad, comparative overviews and suggest theoretical approaches, while the ensuing chapters focus on specific case studies and discuss a number of key issues such as the convergence of film with politics, the question of gender and violence, as well as the revisiting of the period immediately following independence. Attention is given to fiction, documentary films and recent, short, alternative video productions that are overlooked by more traditional channels. The book stresses the need to pay attention to the significance of African film, and Lusophone African film in particular, within the developing field of world cinema.

Bringing together general overviews, historical considerations, detailed case studies, and focused theoretical reflections, this book is a significant volume for students and researchers in film studies, especially African, Lusophone cultural studies, and world cinema.

For more information, see here. 

Routledge International Handbook of Religion in Global Society

Edited by Jayeel Cornelio, François Gauthier, Tuomas Martikainen, Linda Woodhead
Published by Routledge, November 2020
 

Like any other subject, the study of religion is a child of its time. Shaped and forged over the course of the twentieth century, it has reflected the interests and political situation of the world at the time. As the twenty-first century unfolds, it is undergoing a major transition along with religion itself. This volume showcases new work and new approaches to religion which work across boundaries of religious tradition, academic discipline and region.

The influence of globalizing processes has been evident in social and cultural networking by way of new media like the internet, in the extensive power of global capitalism and in the increasing influence of international bodies and legal instruments. Religion has been changing and adapting too. This handbook offers fresh insights on the dynamic reality of religion in global societies today by underscoring transformations in eight key areas: Market and Branding; Contemporary Ethics and Virtues; Intimate Identities; Transnational Movements; Diasporic Communities; Responses to Diversity; National Tensions; and Reflections on ‘Religion’. These themes demonstrate the handbook’s new topics and approaches that move beyond existing agendas.

Bringing together scholars of all ages and stages of career from around the world, the handbook showcases the dynamism of religion in global societies. It is an accessible introduction to new ways of approaching the study of religion practically, theoretically and geographically.

For more information, see here. 

Rethinking Cultural Criticism: New Voices in the Digital Age

Edited by Nete Nørgaard Kristensen, Unni From and Helle Kannik Haastrup
Published by Springer Singapore, January 2021
 

This edited volume examines cultural criticism in the digital age. It provides new insights into how critical authority and expertise in a cultural context are being reconfigured in digital media and by means of digital media, as the boundaries of cultural criticism and who may perform as a cultural critic are redefined or even dissolved. The book applies cross-media and cross-disciplinary perspectives to advance cultural criticism as a wide-ranging and multi-facetted object of study in the 21st century. Presenting a broad collection of case studies, including global cases such as the Golden Globe, the Intellectual Dark Web, YouTube, Rotten Tomatoes and Artsy and particular national contexts such as Britain, the Czech Republic, Denmark and the Netherlands, the book showcases the many theoretical and methodological approaches that may serve as useful frameworks for studying new critical voices in the digital age. It will be of interest to media, communication and journalism scholars as well as scholars from a range of aesthetic disciplines.

For more information, see here. 

Turkish Literature as World Literature

Edited by Burcu Alkan and Çimen Günay-Erkol
Published by Bloomsbury, January 2021
 

Essays covering a broad range of genres and ranging from the late Ottoman era to contemporary literature open the debate on the place of Turkish literature in the globalized literary world. Explorations of the multilingual cosmopolitanism of the Ottoman literary scene are complemented by examples of cross-generational intertextual encounters. The renowned poet Nâzim Hikmet is studied from a variety of angles, while contemporary and popular writers such as Orhan Pamuk and Elif Safak are contextualized.

Turkish Literature as World Literature not only fills a significant lacuna in world literary studies but also draws a composite historical, political, and cultural portrait of Turkey in its relations with the broader world.

For more information, see here. 

Cinema of Exploration: Essays on an Adventurous Film Practice

Edited by James Leo Cahill and Luca Caminati
Published by Routledge, December 2020
 

Drawing together 18 contributions from leading international scholars, this book conceptualizes the history and theory of cinema’s century-long relationship to modes of exploration in its many forms, from colonialist expeditions to decolonial radical cinemas to the perceptual voyage of the senses made possible by the cinematic apparatus.

This is the first anthology dedicated to analysing cinema’s relationship to exploration from a global, decolonial, and ecological perspective. Featuring leading scholars working with pathbreaking interdisciplinary methodologies (drawing on insights from science and technology studies, postcolonial theory, indigenous ways of knowing, and film theory and history), it theorizes not only cinema’s implication in imperial conquest but also its cutting-edge role in empirical expansion and experiments in sensual and critical perception. The collected essays consider filmmaking in cross-cultural contexts and films made in or about peoples in South America, Asia, Africa, Indigenous North America, as well as polar, outer space, and underwater exploration, with famous figures such as Jacques Yves Cousteau alongside amateur and scientific filmmakers.

The essays in this collection are ideal for a broad range of scholars, graduate students, and advanced undergraduate students in cinema and media studies, cultural studies, and cognate fields.

For more information, see here. 

Queer Sites in Global Contexts

Edited by Regner Ramos and Sharif Mowlabocus
Published by Routledge, December 2020
 

Queer Sites in Global Contexts showcases a variety of cross-cultural perspectives that foreground the physical and online experiences of LGBTQ+ people living in the Caribbean, South and North America, the Middle East, Europe, and Asia.

The individual chapters—a collection of research-based texts by scholars around the world—provide twelve compelling case studies: queer sites that include buildings, digital networks, natural landscapes, urban spaces, and non-normative bodies. By prioritizing divergent histories and practices of queer life in geographies that are often othered by dominant queer studies in the West—female sex workers, people of color, indigenous populations, Latinx communities, trans identities, migrants—the book constructs thoroughly situated, nuanced discussions on queerness through a variety of research methods.

The book presents tangible examples of empirical research and practice-based work in the fields of queer and gender studies; geography, architectural, and urban theory; and media and digital culture. Responding to the critical absence surrounding experiences of non-White queer folk in Western academia, Queer Sites in Global Contexts acts as a timely resource for scholars, activists, and thinkers interested in queer placemaking practices—both spatial and digital—of diverse cultures.

For more information, see here. 

The Handbook of Displacement

Edited by P. Adey, J. Bowstead, J. Brickell, V. Desai, M. Dolton, A. Pinkerton, A. Siddiqi
Published by Routledge, December 2020
 

This Handbook provides the knowledge and tools needed to understand how displacement is lived, governed, and mediated as an unfolding and grounded process bound up in spatial inequities of power and injustice. The handbook ensures, first, that internal displacements and their everyday (re)occurrences are not overlooked; second, it questions ‘who counts’ by including ‘displaced’ people who are less obviously identifiable and a clearly circumscribed or categorised group; third, it stresses that while displacement suggests mobility, there are also periods and spaces of enforced stillness that are not adequately reflected in the displacement literature; and fourth, it re-evokes and explores the ‘place’ in displacement by critically interrogating peoples’ ‘right to place’ and the significance of placemaking, unmaking, and remaking in the contemporary world. 

The 50-plus chapters are organised across seven themes designed to further develope interdisciplinary study of the technologies, journeys, traces, governance, more-than-human, representation, and resisting of displacement. Each of these thematic sections begin with an intervention which spotlights actions to creatively and strategically intervene in displacement. The interventions explore myriad meanings and manifestations of displacement and its contestation from the perspective of displaced people, artists, writers, activists, scholar-activists, and scholars involved in practice-oriented research. The Handbook will be an essential companion for academics, students, and practitioners committed to forging solidarity, care, and home in an era of displacement.

For more information, see here. 

Moving Images: Mediating Migration as Crisis

Edited by Krista Lynes, Tyler Morgenstern and Ian Alan Paul
Published by Transcript, May 2020
 

In recent years, spectacular images of ruined boats, makeshift border camps, and beaches littered with life vests have done much to consolidate the politics of movement in Europe. Indeed, the mediation of migration as a crisis has worked to shore up various forms of militarized surveillance, humanitarian response, legislative action, and affective investment. Bridging academic inquiry and artistic and activist practice, the essays, documents, and artworks gathered in Moving Images interrogate the mediation of migration and refugeeism in the contemporary European conjuncture, asking how images, discourses, and data are involved in shaping the visions and experience of migration in increasingly global contexts.

For more information, see here. 

Ideology in Postcolonial Texts and Contexts

Edited by Katja Sarkowsky and Mark U. Stein
Published by Brill, November 2020
 

Ideology in Postcolonial Texts and Contexts reflects that critiques of ideological formations occur within intersecting social, political, and cultural configurations where each position is in itself ‘ideological’ – and subject to asymmetrical power relations. Postcolonialism has become an object of critique as ideology, but postcolonial studies’ highly diversified engagement with ideology remains a strong focus that exceedsIdeologiekritik. Fourteen contributors from North America, Africa, and Europe focus (I) on the complex relation between postcolonialism, postcolonial theory, and conceptualizations of ideology, (II) on ideological formations that manifest themselves in very specific postcolonial contexts, highlighting the potential continuities between colonial and postcolonial ideology, and (III) on further expanding and complicating the nexus of postcolonial ideology, from veiling as both ideological practice and individual resistance to home as ideological construct; from palimpsestic readings of colonial photography to aesthetics as ideology.

For more information, see here. 

Le Thinnai Kreyol - Season 3 Live on Facebook

Le Thinnai Kreyol, a collaboration between writer Ari Gautier and academic Ananya Jahanara Kabir, is launching its third season of conversations and encounters that discuss and celebrate India's multicultural histories. The initiative aims to “enable encounters between representatives – artists, intellectuals, entrepreneurs – of disappeared or disappearing pasts, to build solidarities through sharing creativity and cultural heritage”, as explained here. This season kicks off with a conversation between Professors Ato Quayson and Alain Mabanckou, which will be released live on Friday 15 January. 

For the full overview of this season's shows, see here. Follow Le Thinnai Kreyol on Facebook for more information, updates and access to the videos. 

Research Assistant: ERC project CONNECTINGEUROPE

You will be assisting in the ERC project CONNECTINGEUROPE. Your tasks will be to support the Principal Investigator (PI), Prof. Sandra Ponzanesi (Media and Culture Studies, Utrecht University) in the various activities, programming and execution. For more information about responsibilities, requirements and other details please check here. 

The job will be for 1 or 2 days a week for 6 months. Salary scale to be negotiated according to skills and expertise. For more information, please contact s.ponzanesi@uu.nl. Submit your CV, short motivation (500 words) and relevant information here by 31 January 2021.