Diaspora and Visual Culture marks the new importance of diaspora as a means of understanding the new modes of postnational identity. In examining the visual culture of the "classic" African and Jewish diasporas, contributors address different aspects of the multiple viewpoints inherent in diasporic cultures. Two key introductory essays by Stuart Hall and the painter R.B. Kitaj highlight the intersections of diaspora and cultural identity.
The subsequent essays examine individual instances of diaspora as diverse as homosexuality in the Dreyfus Affair, the Caribbean-Jewish Impressionist painter Camille Pissarro, Yoruba diaspora art and performance in Brazil and New York, identity in the art of African-American women in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the formation of American, European and Israeli artistic identity and the possibility that queer culture is diasporic.

Introduces visual culture as visual activism, or activating the visible. Outlines three currently successful tactics of visual activism: removal of statues and monuments; restitution of cultural property; and practices of repair and reparations. Addresses catastrophe and trauma, from Palestine’s Nakba to the climate disaster and the intersections of plague and war. Maps the activist turn in the field since 2014 and sets directions for its future expansion.

Ten years after the last edition, this thoroughly revised and updated third edition of The Visual Culture Reader highlights the transformed and expanded nature of globalized visual cultures. It assembles key new writings, visual essays and specially commissioned articles, emphasizing the intersections of the Web 2.0, digital cultures, globalization, visual arts and media, and the visualizations of war. The volume attests to the maturity and exciting development of this cutting-edge field.

Fully illustrated throughout, The Reader features an introductory section tracing the development of what editor Nicholas Mirzoeff calls "critical visuality studies." It develops into thematic sections, each prefaced by an introduction by the editor, with an emphasis on global coverage. Each thematic section includes suggestions for further reading. Thematic sections include:

• Expansions
• War and Violence
• Attention and Visualizing Economy
• Bodies and Minds
• Histories and Memories
• (Post/De/Neo)Colonial Visualities
• Media and Mediations

Taken as a whole, these 47 essays provide a vital introduction to the diversity of contemporary visual culture studies and a key resource for research and teaching in the field.

Contributors: Ackbar Abbas, Morana Alac, Malek Alloula, Ariella Azoulay, Zainab Bahrani, Jonathan L. Beller, Suzanne Preston Blier, Lisa Cartwright, Dipesh Chakrabarty, Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, Beth Coleman, Teddy Cruz, Rene Descartes, Faisal Devji, Henry Drewal, Okwui Enwezor, Frantz Fanon, Allen Feldman, Mark Fisher, Finbarr Barry Flood, Anne Friedberg, Alex Galloway, Faye Ginsburg, Derek Gregory, J. Jack Halberstam, Donna Haraway, Brian Holmes, Amelia Jones, Georgina Kleege, Sarat Maharaj, Brian Massumi, Carol Mavor, Tara McPherson, Nicholas Mirzoeff, Timothy Mitchell, W. J. T. Mitchell, Naeem Mohaiemen, Fred Moten, Lisa Nakamura, Trevor Paglen, Lisa Parks, Sumathi Ramaswamy, Jacques Ranciere, Andrew Ross, Terence E. Smith, Marita Sturken, Paolo Virno, Eyal Weizman"

This is a reflective, funny account of one of the most popular TV sitcoms ever made: "Seinfeld "(1990-1998). Ostensibly a show "about nothing," its creator Larry David decreed that it should contain "no hugging, no learning." Nicholas Mirzoeff explores Seinfeld's obsession with the rules of everyday life in the key areas of comedy itself: dating, relationships, Jewishness and how to be a New Yorker, wherever you happen to live. Mirzoeff situates Seinfeld as an expression of Clinton-era America, from its consistently ironic take on social life, to the changing culture of sexuality and ethnicity. This is a reflective, funny and occasionally digressive account of what it is to watch television.

Groundbreaking and compelling, Watching Babylon examines the experience of watching the war against Iraq on television, on the internet, in the cinema and in print media.

Mirzoeff shows how the endless stream of images flowing from the Gulf has necessitated a new form of visual thinking, one which recognises that the war has turned images themselves into weapons. Drawing connections between the history and legend of ancient Babylon, the metaphorical Babylon of Western modernity, and everyday life in the modern suburb of Babylon, New York, Mirzoeff explores ancient concerns which have found new resonance in the present day.

In the tradition of Walter Benjamin, Watching Babylon illuminates the Western experience of the Iraqi war and makes us re-examine the very way we look at images of conflict.

This groundbreaking book examines the experience of watching the war against Iraq on television, on the Internet, in print media and in cinema. Looking at the endless stream of images from Iraq requires a new form of visual thinking that highlights the intersection of local and global while recognizing the way in which the war turned images themselves into weapons. Making striking connections between the history and legend of ancient Babylon, the Babylon that is Western modernity and everyday life in the modern suburb of Babylon, New York, Nicholas Mirzoeff explores that part of the ancient which is still present in the modern. Taking cues from Walter Benjamin he illuminates our Western experience of the Iraqi war by focusing on the intersection of past, present and future in a way which is both original and highly compelling.

This book seeks to put the bodies back into modern art. In a series of thematic historical studies, Mirzoeff argues that the perfect body of modern art theory can only exist in visual form. Studies include the work of Picasso, Manet and Madonna.

Ten years after the last edition, this thoroughly revised and updated third edition of The Visual Culture Reader highlights the transformed and expanded nature of globalized visual cultures. It assembles key new writings, visual essays and specially commissioned articles, emphasizing the intersections of the Web 2.0, digital cultures, globalization, visual arts and media, and the visualizations of war. The volume attests to the maturity and exciting development of this cutting-edge field.

Fully illustrated throughout, The Reader features an introductory section tracing the development of what editor Nicholas Mirzoeff calls "critical visuality studies." It develops into thematic sections, each prefaced by an introduction by the editor, with an emphasis on global coverage. Each thematic section includes suggestions for further reading. Thematic sections include:

• Expansions
• War and Violence
• Attention and Visualizing Economy
• Bodies and Minds
• Histories and Memories
• (Post/De/Neo)Colonial Visualities
• Media and Mediations

Taken as a whole, these 47 essays provide a vital introduction to the diversity of contemporary visual culture studies and a key resource for research and teaching in the field.

Contributors: Ackbar Abbas, Morana Alac, Malek Alloula, Ariella Azoulay, Zainab Bahrani, Jonathan L. Beller, Suzanne Preston Blier, Lisa Cartwright, Dipesh Chakrabarty, Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, Beth Coleman, Teddy Cruz, Ren Descartes, Faisal Devji, Henry Drewal, Okwui Enwezor, Frantz Fanon, Allen Feldman, Mark Fisher, Finbarr Barry Flood, Anne Friedberg, Alex Galloway, Faye Ginsburg, Derek Gregory, J. Jack Halberstam, Donna Haraway, Brian Holmes, Amelia Jones, Georgina Kleege, Sarat Maharaj, Brian Massumi, Carol Mavor, Tara McPherson, Nicholas Mirzoeff, Timothy Mitchell, W. J. T. Mitchell, Naeem Mohaiemen, Fred Moten, Lisa Nakamura, Trevor Paglen, Lisa Parks, Sumathi Ramaswamy, Jacques Ranci re, Andrew Ross, Terence E. Smith, Marita Sturken, Paolo Virno, Eyal Weizman

This is the first book to examine the connections between diaspora - the movement, whether forced or voluntary, of a nation or group of people from one homeland to another - and its representations in visual culture. Two foundational articles by Stuart Hall and the painter R.B. Kitaj provide points of departure for an exploration of the meanings of diaspora for cultural identity and artistic practice.
A distinguished group of contributors, who include Alan Sinfield, Irit Rogoff, and Eunice Lipton, address the rich complexity of diasporic cultures and art, but with a focus on the visual culture of the Jewish and African diasporas. Individual articles address the Jewish diaspora and visual culture from the 19th century to the present, and work by African American and Afro-Brazilian artists.

Protestors across the world use aesthetics in order to communicate their ideas and ensure their voices are heard. This book looks at protest aesthetics, which we consider to be the visual and performative elements of protest, such as images, symbols, graffiti, art, as well as the choreography of protest actions in public spaces. Through the use of social media, protestors have been able to create an alternative space for people to engage with politics that is more inclusive and participatory than traditional politics. This volume focuses on the role of visual culture in a highly mediated environment and draws on case studies from Europe, Thailand, South Africa, USA, Argentina, and the Middle East in order to demonstrate how protestors use aesthetics to communicate their demands and ideas. It examines how digital media is harnessed by protestors and argues that all protest aesthetics are performative and communicative.

In the fully rewritten third edition of this classic text, Nicholas Mirzoeff introduces visual culture as visual activism, or activating the visible. In this view, visual culture is a practice: a way of doing, making, and seeing.

The 12 new chapters begin with five foundational concepts, including Indigenous ways of seeing, visual activism in the wake of slavery, and unfixing the gaze. The second section outlines three currently successful tactics of visual activism: removal of statues and monuments; restitution of cultural property; and practices of repair and reparations. The final section addresses catastrophe and trauma, from Palestine’s Nakba to the climate disaster and the intersections of plague and war. Each section also includes new, in-depth case studies called "Visualizations," ranging from oil painting to Kongo power figures and the mediated practice of taking a knee.

Engaging with questions of racializing, colonialism, and undoing gender throughout, this edition maps the activist turn in the field since 2014 and sets directions for its future expansion. This is a key text in visual culture studies and an essential resource for research and teaching in the field.

Table of Contents

Introduction Visualization 1: Perspective, Visuality and the Way of Seeing Part 1. Foundational 1.Acknowledgement and Groundwork 2. Indigenous Ways of Seeing 3. In Slavery’s Wake 4.Surveillance and Counter-Surveillance 5.Unfixing the Gaze Visualization 2: The Ambassadors by Hans Holbein Visualization 3: The Decisive Moment and The Limits of Looking Part 2. Tactics of Visual Activism 6. Removal 7.Restitution 8. Repair and Reparations Visualization 4: Power Figures: Minkisi Nkondi Part 3. Catastrophe 9. Nakba 10. The Climate {R}evolution 11. Plague and War Visualization 5: Taking a Knee

This book explores the dynamic interaction between art and the sign language of the deaf in France from the philsopheRs to the introduction of the sound motion picture. Nicholas Mirzoeff shows how the French Revolution transformed the ancienT regime metaphor of painting as silent poetry into a nineteenth-century school of over one hundred deaf artists. Painters, sculptors, photographers, and graphic artists all emanated from the Institute for the Deaf in Paris, playing a central role in the vibrant deaf culture of the period. With the rise of Darwinism, eugenics, and race science, however, the deaf found themselves categorized as "savages," excluded and ignored by the hearing. This book is concerned with the process and history of that marginalization, the constitution of a "center" from which the abnormal could be excluded, and the vital role of visual culture within this discourse. Based on groundbreaking archival and pictorial research, Mirzoeff's exciting and intertextual analysis of what he terms the "silent screen of deafness" produces an alternative hIstory of nineteenth-century art that challenges canonical view of the history of art, the inheritance of the Enlightenment, and the functions, status, and meanings of visual culture itself. Fusing methodologies from cultural studies, poststructuralism and art history, his study will be important for students and scholars of art history, cultural and deaf studies, and the history of medicine, and will interest a general audience concerned with the relationship of the deaf and the larger society. Nicholas Mirzoeff is Assistant Professor of Art History at the University of Wisconsin. Originally published in 1995. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

This book explores the dynamic interaction between art and the sign language of the deaf in France from the philsopheRs to the introduction of the sound motion picture. Nicholas Mirzoeff shows how the French Revolution transformed the ancienT regime metaphor of painting as silent poetry into a nineteenth-century school of over one hundred deaf artists. Painters, sculptors, photographers, and graphic artists all emanated from the Institute for the Deaf in Paris, playing a central role in the vibrant deaf culture of the period. With the rise of Darwinism, eugenics, and race science, however, the deaf found themselves categorized as "savages," excluded and ignored by the hearing. This book is concerned with the process and history of that marginalization, the constitution of a "center" from which the abnormal could be excluded, and the vital role of visual culture within this discourse. Based on groundbreaking archival and pictorial research, Mirzoeff's exciting and intertextual analysis of what he terms the "silent screen of deafness" produces an alternative hIstory of nineteenth-century art that challenges canonical view of the history of art, the inheritance of the Enlightenment, and the functions, status, and meanings of visual culture itself. Fusing methodologies from cultural studies, poststructuralism and art history, his study will be important for students and scholars of art history, cultural and deaf studies, and the history of medicine, and will interest a general audience concerned with the relationship of the deaf and the larger society. Nicholas Mirzoeff is Assistant Professor of Art History at the University of Wisconsin. Originally published in 1995. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

In recent decades, we have witnessed an explosion in the number of visual images we encounter, as our lives have become increasingly saturated with screens. From Google Images to Instagram, video games to installation art, this transformation is confusing, liberating and worrying all at once, since observing the new visuality of culture is not the same as understanding it. Nicholas Mirzoeff is a leading figure in the field of visual culture, which aims to make sense of this extraordinary explosion of visual experiences. As Mirzoeff reminds us, this is not the first visual revolution; the 19th century saw the invention of film, photography and x-rays, and the development of maps, microscopes and telescopes made the 17th century an era of visual discovery. But the sheer quantity of images produced on the internet today has no parallels. In the first book to define visual culture for the general reader, Mirzoeff draws on art history, theory and everyday experience to provide an engaging and accessible overview of how visual materials shape and define our lives.

Every two minutes, Americans alone take more photographs than were printed in the entire nineteenth century; every minute, people from around the world upload over 300 hours of video to YouTube; and in 2014, we took over one trillion photographs. From the funny memes that we send to our friends to the disturbing photographs we see in the news, we are consuming and producing images in quantities and ways that could never have been anticipated. In the process, we are producing a new worldview powered by changing demographics--one where the majority of people are young, urban, and globally connected. In How to See the World, visual culture expert Nicholas Mirzoeff offers a sweeping look at history's most famous images--from Velazquez's Las Meninas to the iconic "Blue Marble"--to contextualize and make sense of today's visual world. Drawing on art history, sociology, semiotics, and everyday experience, he teaches us how to close read everything from astronaut selfies to Impressionist self-portraits, from Hitchcock films to videos taken by drones. Mirzoeff takes us on a journey through visual revolutions in the arts and sciences, from new mapping techniques in the seventeenth century to new painting styles in the eighteenth and the creation of film, photography, and x-rays in the nineteenth century. In today's networked world, mobile technology and social media enable us to exercise "visual activism"--the practice of producing and circulating images to drive political and social change. Whether we are looking at pictures showing the effects of climate change on natural and urban landscapes or an fMRI scan demonstrating neurological addiction, Mirzoeff helps us to find meaning in what we see. A powerful and accessible introduction to this new visual culture, How to See the World reveals how images shape our lives, how we can harness their power for good, and why they matter to us all.