The post-colonial world has seen a major re-evaluation, political as well as theoretical, of the institutions and ideologies of colonialism. In addition to historical and literary studies, innovative theoretical analyses have opened up new approaches to this subject area. In the light of this new thinking, Colonialism and the Object discusses the impact of colonial contact with other cultures on the material culture of both the colonized and the imperial nation.
Drawing together an international group of scholars from a variety of disciplinary and cultural backgrounds, Colonialism and the Object demonstrates that the intensive analyses of museum insights into issues of global importance. The volume includes intensive case-studies of objects from India, Pakistan, New Zealand, China and Africa, all of which were collected by or exhibited in the institutions of the British Empire. Other chapters address issues of radical identity across cultural barriers, and the hybird styles of objects which can emerge when cultures meet.
Colonialism and the Object is essential reading for all those interested in post-colonial theory, museum studies, material culture and design history.

This vibrant collection of essays claims that a complex network of texts by critics, biographers and diarists established the credibility and influence of the Pre-Raphaelite movement. Throughout the twentieth century, Modernist taste failed to acknowledge the achievement of oppositional groupings such as the Pre-Raphaelites. The essays collected here, however, reveal that the British group anticipated later avant-gardes by using the written word to configure for itself a radical artistic identity. Public and critics alike were scandalized by the radicalism of Pre-Raphaelite painting, its unflinching portrayal of historical figures and of contemporary life, and its irreverent attitude to artistic convention. Pre-Raphaelitism's innovations were not confined to style: new forms of artistic identity and behaviour were explored. As the contributors interrogate the texts through which Pre-Raphaelitism was constructed, they demonstrate that the movement's wide influence as a cultural phenomenon derived from the interplay between exhibited works and critical discourse. Applying a range of sophisticated methodologies from the fields of literary studies, art history, and cultural studies, these interdisciplinary essays uncover the neglected role of texts in the success of the Pre-Raphaelite rebellion and argue in favor of a new centrality for this movement in the history of nineteenth-century European culture.

This vibrant collection of essays claims that a complex network of texts by critics, biographers and diarists established the credibility and influence of the Pre-Raphaelite movement. Throughout the twentieth century, Modernist taste failed to acknowledge the achievement of oppositional groupings such as the Pre-Raphaelites. The essays collected here, however, reveal that the British group anticipated later avant-gardes by using the written word to configure for itself a radical artistic identity. Public and critics alike were scandalized by the radicalism of Pre-Raphaelite painting, its unflinching portrayal of historical figures and of contemporary life, and its irreverent attitude to artistic convention. Pre-Raphaelitism's innovations were not confined to style: new forms of artistic identity and behaviour were explored. As the contributors interrogate the texts through which Pre-Raphaelitism was constructed, they demonstrate that the movement's wide influence as a cultural phenomenon derived from the interplay between exhibited works and critical discourse. Applying a range of sophisticated methodologies from the fields of literary studies, art history, and cultural studies, these interdisciplinary essays uncover the neglected role of texts in the success of the Pre-Raphaelite rebellion and argue in favor of a new centrality for this movement in the history of nineteenth-century European culture.

The post-colonial world has seen a major re-evaluation of the insititutions and ideologies of colonialism. Post-colonial theory has enriched our understanding of the history and literature of colonial periods. With reference to this trend, this collection examines the artistic production of both imperial nations and their colonies and aims to show how it was affected by colonial contact. Drawing together an international group of scholars from a variety of disciplinary and cultural backgrounds, it presents case studies of objects from India, Pakistan, New Zealand, China and Africa which were collected by or exhibited in the institutions of the British Empire. Other chapters address issues of racial identity across cultural barriers and the hybrid styles which can emerge when cultures meet. The contributors also consider how we, in the post-colonial era, should interpret the cultural production of the colonial world and how through displaying these objects, contemporary museum practice can address the artistic inheritance of colonialism.

This pioneering study argues that the concept of 'empire' belongs at the centre, rather than in the margins, of British art history. Recent scholarship in history, anthropology, literature and post-colonial studies has superseded traditional definitions of empire as a monolithic political and economic project. Emerging across the humanities is the idea of empire as a complex and contested process, mediated materially and imaginatively by multifarious forms of culture. The twenty essays in Art and the British Empire offer compelling methodological solutions to this ambiguity, while engaging in subtle visual analysis of a previously neglected body of work. Authors from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, the USA and the UK examine a wide range of visual production, including book illustration, portraiture, monumental sculpture, genre and history painting, visual satire, marine and landscape painting, photography and film. Together these essays propose a major shift in the historiography of British art and a blueprint for further research. -- .

This new book offers a single, encompassing view of the development of landscape painting, photography, and land art in Britain from the eighteenth through to the late twentieth century. It reveals the strong continuity between British landscape art of today and that of over 250 years ago, with works by J.M.W. Turner, John Constable, Thomas Gainsborough, John Piper, David Nash, and Richard Long, amongst many others.

Tim Barringer is Paul Mellon Professor of the History of Art, Yale University.

Oliver Fairclough is Keeper of Art, National Museum of Wales.

Victorian Jamaica explores the extraordinary surviving archive of visual representation and material objects to provide a comprehensive account of Jamaican society during Queen Victoria's reign over the British Empire, from 1837 to 1901. In their analyses of material ranging from photographs of plantation laborers and landscape paintings to cricket team photographs, furniture, and architecture, as well as a wide range of texts, the contributors trace the relationship between black Jamaicans and colonial institutions; contextualize race within ritual and performance; and outline how material and visual culture helped shape the complex politics of colonial society. By narrating Victorian history from a Caribbean perspective, this richly illustrated volume-featuring 270 full-color images-offers a complex and nuanced portrait of Jamaica that expands our understanding of the wider history of the British Empire and Atlantic world during this period. Contributors. Anna Arabindan-Kesson, Tim Barringer, Anthony Bogues, David Boxer, Patrick Bryan, Steeve O. Buckridge, Julian Cresser, John M. Cross, Petrina Dacres, Belinda Edmondson, Nadia Ellis, Gillian Forrester, Catherine Hall, Gad Heuman, Rivke Jaffe, O'Neil Lawrence, Erica Moiah James, Jan Marsh, Wayne Modest, Daniel T. Neely, Mark Nesbitt, Diana Paton, Elizabeth Pigou-Dennis, Veerle Poupeye, Jennifer Raab, James Robertson, Shani Roper, Faith Smith, Nicole Smythe-Johnson, Dianne M. Stewart, Krista A. Thompson