In “Notes on Postcolonial Visual Culture” (2011), Arvind Rajagopal points out that
Analysts of visual culture have only recently begun to reckon with the complexity of postcolonial visual culture, acknowledging that it presents discontinuous temporalities and complex aesthetic forms that challenge routine ways of relating the history of media form to conventional historical processes. (11)
In this special issue of the PSA newsletter we examine how the relationship between postcolonialism and visual culture has evolved in the last ten years, and we ask how postcolonial visual culture represents and engages with the histories and processes of the colonial and the postcolonial.
In this context, we are also interested in the relationship between postcolonial visual and textual cultures, for example in terms of the aesthetic strategies that they use, but equally taking into account that the visual is often considered as more ‘authentic’ or ‘real,’ whereas text is more often linked to fiction. Are these types of cultural productions still considered to be discrete and indeed doing different work? How do we engage with postcolonial work at the intersection of the visual and the textual, for example graphic novels and video games?
We encourage original contributions from a range of disciplines that examine the relationship between visual culture and postcolonial studies. Contributions might consider, but are not limited to, the following questions:
- How does visual culture (graphic novels, film, fine art, performance, dance, photography, videogames, etc.) engage with and potentially challenge the idea of the postcolonial?
- To what extent does postcolonial visual culture draw on a particular set of aesthetics to examine the colonial and the postcolonial?
- What is the relationship between visual and textual cultures in a postcolonial context?
- To what extent has visual culture’s engagement with the colonial and the postcolonial been different to that of textual culture?
- How does postcolonial theory engage with the idea of the ‘visual’?
- How has the study of postcolonial visual culture evolved in the last ten years?
Articles should be between 700 and 1,200 words, and should be fully referenced using the Harvard Referencing Style. Contributors should feel free to contact the editors Edward Powell (edjohnpowell@gmail.com) and Isabelle Hesse (isabelle.hesse@sydney.edu.au) as soon as possible with any inquiries or proposals.
We also welcome reports on recent events or conferences as well as reviews of books related to postcolonial studies and visual culture. If you’re interested in reviewing a book, please get in touch with the editors.
The deadline for final submissions is 15th March 2019. Please submit your contribution via email to the editors Edward Powell (edjohnpowell@gmail.com) and Isabelle Hesse (isabelle.hesse@sydney.edu.au).
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