The Carpathians - University of British Columbia
The Carpathians - University of British Columbia
The Carpathians - University of British Columbia
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previously published, mostly in the mid to<br />
late 1980s. <strong>The</strong> editors put this volume<br />
together to remind us that works <strong>of</strong> art and<br />
the artists (defined in the broadest sense)<br />
who create them are very much a part <strong>of</strong><br />
the world around them. Consequently, the<br />
many different voices in this text, from the<br />
realms <strong>of</strong> photography, film, performance,<br />
music, academia, and architecture, address<br />
most <strong>of</strong> the larger concerns <strong>of</strong> our day—<br />
colonialism, feminism, representation,<br />
appropriation, ideology, power. <strong>The</strong> term<br />
discourse is denned in the Foucauldian<br />
sense as "a "great surface' <strong>of</strong> mediation<br />
rather than 'an ideal, timeless form.... a<br />
multiplicity <strong>of</strong> discursive elements that can<br />
come into play in various strategies.'"<br />
Indeed, many <strong>of</strong> the 100 artists, theorists<br />
and critics represented here draw on con<br />
temporary critical theory to inform their<br />
work and most would agree with Foucault<br />
and Deleuze that theory is always practice—it<br />
is an "activity conducted alongside<br />
those who struggle for power, and not their<br />
illumination from a safe distance." Several<br />
<strong>of</strong> those in this book make formal theory<br />
an essential part <strong>of</strong> their practice: the<br />
Sank<strong>of</strong>a Film/Video Collective and the<br />
Black Audio Film Collective, the two most<br />
significant media groups to come out <strong>of</strong> the<br />
<strong>British</strong> workshop movement <strong>of</strong> the 1980s,<br />
draw from Foucauldian, psychoanalytic,<br />
Afro-Caribbean, and post colonial discourse<br />
in order to explore, in their "film<br />
essays," how radical (Black) politics and<br />
(several Black) aesthetics might converge;<br />
filmmakers Laleen Jayamanne, Leslie<br />
Thornton, and Trinh T. Minh-ha pepper<br />
their conversation with references to<br />
Foucault, Lyotard, Bhabha, Said, Deleuze<br />
and Guattari, Jameson, and so on, as they<br />
move toward a definition <strong>of</strong> post-feminism<br />
as "a resistance to Woman and to monolithic<br />
Feminism." <strong>The</strong>n there are contributions<br />
by the theorists themselves. Julia<br />
Kristeva, Gayatri Spivak, Jacques Derrida,<br />
Roland Barthes, and Jane Gallop.<br />
Some other discussions do not as explicitly<br />
rely on theory, but many <strong>of</strong> the most<br />
salient points that arise are informed by the<br />
language <strong>of</strong> contemporary theory. In the<br />
lengthiest exchange in the book, Museum<br />
<strong>of</strong> Modern Art curator, William Rubin,<br />
who comes to represent the modernist aesthetic<br />
which favours the relocation <strong>of</strong> art<br />
objects <strong>of</strong> other peoples from their original<br />
location and function in order to emphasize<br />
certain stylistic affinities, takes on critic<br />
Thomas McEvilley, who is unrelenting in<br />
his critique <strong>of</strong> that particular co-optive,<br />
colonizing impulse <strong>of</strong> modernism.<br />
Nationalisms and Sexualities is an excellent<br />
collection <strong>of</strong> twenty three essays;<br />
twenty were initially presented at an international<br />
conference held at Harvard<br />
<strong>University</strong> in June 1989, and three were previously<br />
published. <strong>The</strong> idea for the conference<br />
came from George L. Mosse's<br />
Nationalism and Sexuality, one <strong>of</strong> the first<br />
studies to treat sexuality and nation as<br />
inseparable units, and many <strong>of</strong> the essays<br />
were influenced by Benedict Anderson's<br />
Imagined Communities, which contends<br />
that the term nationalism belongs with kinship<br />
or religion and not with fascism or liberalism.<br />
<strong>The</strong> collection covers a wide range<br />
<strong>of</strong> geographical areas and historical<br />
moments in its attempt to show us how<br />
powerful these two discourses are in shaping<br />
our present day notions <strong>of</strong> identity. Like<br />
gender, the editors write, "nationality is a<br />
relational term whose identity derives from<br />
its inherence in a system <strong>of</strong> differences. In<br />
the same way that 'man' and 'woman'<br />
define themselves reciprocally... national<br />
identity is determined not on the basis <strong>of</strong><br />
its own intrinsic properties but as a function<br />
<strong>of</strong> what it (presumably) is not." <strong>The</strong><br />
editors conclude, along with Mosse and<br />
Anderson, that since nationalism favours a<br />
"distinctly homosocial form <strong>of</strong> male bonding,"<br />
and since no nationalism on earth has<br />
ever allowed men and women the same<br />
"privileged access to the resources <strong>of</strong> the