The demise of the Beothuk as a past still present

This article aims to investigate contemporary cultural representations of the Beothuk Indians in art, literature and museum displays in Newfoundland, Canada, focussing on ways these reimagine the past for the present, offering perspectives on contested histories, such as the circumstances leading to the demise of the Beothuk. Wiped out through the impact of colonialism, the Beothuk are the ���absent other��� who continue to be remembered and made present through the creative arts, largely at the expense of other indigenous groups on the island. Rather than focussing on the ���non-absent past, according to Polish scholar Ewa Doma��ska, ���instead we turn to a past that is somehow still present, that will not go away or, rather, that of which we cannot rid ourselves��� (2006, 346). Depictions of the last Beothuk are part of a cultural remembering where guilt and reconciliation are played out through media of the imagination

Visual Disobedience: The Geopolitics of Experimental Art in Central America, 1990-Present

<p>This dissertation centers on the relationship between art and politics in postwar Central America as materialized in the specific issues of racial and gendered violence that derive from the region's geopolitical location and history. It argues that the decade of the 1990s marks a moment of change in the region's cultural infrastructure, both institutionally and conceptually, in which artists seek a new visual language of experimental art practices to articulate and conceptualize a critical understanding of place, experience and knowledge. It posits that visual and conceptual manifestations of violence in Central American performance, conceptual art and installation extend beyond a critique of the state, and beyond the scope of political parties in perpetuating violent circumstances in these countries. It argues that instead artists use experimental practices in art to locate manifestations of racial violence in an historical system of domination and as a legacy of colonialism still witnessed, lived, and learned by multiple subjectivities in the region. In this postwar period artists move beyond the cold-war rhetoric of the previous decades and instead root the current social and political injustices in what An��bal Quijano calls the `coloniality of power.' Through an engagement of decolonial methodologies, this dissertation challenges the label "political art" in Central America and offers what I call "visual disobedience" as a response to the coloniality of seeing. I posit that visual colonization is yet another aspect of the coloniality of power and indispensable to projects of decolonization. It offers an analysis of various works to show how visual disobedience responds specifically to racial and gender violence and the equally violent colonization of visuality in Mesoamerica. Such geopolitical critiques through art unmask themes specific to life and identity in contemporary Central America, from indigenous genocide, femicide, transnational gangs, to mass imprisonments and a new wave of social cleansing. I propose that Central American artists--beyond an anti-colonial stance--are engaging in visual disobedience so as to construct decolonial epistemologies in art, through art, and as art as decolonial gestures for healing.</p>

���Martial races��� and ���imperial subjects���: violence and governance in colonial India, 1857���1914

This essay explores the specificity of colonial violence in India. Although imperial and military historians are familiar with several instances of such violence���notably the rebellion in 1857 and the 1919 massacre at the Jallianwalla Bagh in Amritsar���there is a broader, and arguably more significant, history that has largely escaped attention. In contrast to metropolitan European states, where sovereignty derived, at least in principle, from a covenant between subjects and government, the sovereign power of the colonial state was always predicated on the violent subjugation of ���the natives���. However, while violence was integral to colonialism, such violence was never a purely metropolitan agency: most of those recruited to serve in the colonial military were, themselves, Indian. Exploring the history of the imperial military in South Asia after 1857, the paper outlines the complex and rather ambiguous relationship between the colonial state and its ���native armies���. RESUME Cet article se penche sur la spe��cificite�� de la violence coloniale. Malgre�� des exemples familiers���comme la grande re��volte de 1857 en Inde ou le massacre de Jallianwalla Bagh a` Amritsar en 1919���il y a une histoire plus large et plus importante qui a e��chappe��e a` l���attention des historiens. Contrairement aux e��tats europe��ens ou la souverainete�� de��rivait en principe du moins d���un contrat social entre les acteurs sociaux, le pouvoir souverain de l���e��tat colonial restait fonde�� sur la subjugation violente des indige`nes.

From Agatha Christie to Ruth Rendell: British women writers in detective and crime fiction

This work considers, seriously, the hugely popular and influential works of Agatha Christie, Dorothy L.Sayers, Margery Allingham, Ngaio Marsh, P.D. James and Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine. Providing studies of 42 key novels, it introduces these authors for students and the general reader within the contexts of their lives, and critical debates on gender, colonialism, psychoanalysis, the Gothic, and feminism. It includes interviews with P.D. James and Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine. [From the Publisher]

Short reflections on the history of African communication

This article aims to propose a chronological subdivision in the history of African communication. African communication today is one of the most important axes for implementing development strategies, sustaining education, health, and schooling programmes, and so on. However, many of these programmes fail due to a lack of or ineffective communication between international organisations, local elite and lay people. The reasons for this situation must be found in Africa���s history of communication, which has undergone radical transformations in its different phases. Using the functionalist analysis drawn up by Jakobson, this article proposes a new chronological subdivision of Africa���s history of communication, reflecting on the current contradictions in contemporary communication in Africa.

The census and women's work in Rangoon, 1872���1931

The colonial census was a bureaucratic device which provided an essential abstraction from social reality, a ���statistical fix��� designed to map individual social groups in space. This paper considers the contradictions associated with colonial knowledge systems as reflected in the census grafted onto Burmese society in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It attempts to chart the general adoption and adaptation, in the Burmese context, of a classificatory scheme which categorised labour as either productive or unproductive. Colonialism introduced new attitudes towards work and labour which reinforced patriarchal values which contrasted with more egalitarian Burmese socio-economic systems. The paper suggests that a simple classification of women workers as either productive or unproductive in the Burmese census between 1872 and 1931 resulted in the devaluation of their status as workers. This devaluation was a function of both real economic transformation taking place in the empire and changes in census classification, reflecting a gendering of occupations that undermined the cultural norms of Burmese society. The material result was that women became statistically less visible as economically productive workers. Such ascriptions of value to women workers were largely informed by moral considerations originating in England.

Before the Volcano:Reverberations of Identity on Montserrat

How is identity claimed, contested and sustained? <br/> <br/>This book looks at retentions, reconstructions and reverberations of identity in a colonial Caribbean setting. It is an ���uncomfortable��� and ���impressionistic��� ethnography of life on the island of Montserrat leading up to and including the present day volcanic eruptions. It explores Montserrat���s existing colonial identity and emerging postcolonial identity drawing upon examples from local poets, calypsonians and historians; controversial development and trade union struggles; and the impact of tourism and colonialism on the island ��� Black Irish identity claims and the celebration and/or commemoration of St. Patrick���s Day in particular. <br/> <br/>This book will appeal to Anthropologists, Sociologists, and Cultural Studies and Caribbean Studies scholars, as well as those involved in and concerned for the reconstruction of Montserrat the place and Mons���rat the people. <br/>

Escaping From The Past? The Falkland Islands in the Twenty-First Century

This paper discusses the competing claims for the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic, which led to a war in 1982 between the United Kingdom and Argentina, which given that it was over competing claims for sovereignty over a non-independent territory seemed to be redolent of the nineteenth rather than the late-twentieth century. Post-war developments are outlined whilst the paper considers whether or not the Falkland Islands can ever escape from the Conflict, now more than thirty years ago.

���La litt��rature est la seule patrie���: Nabile Far��s and the Poetry of Postcolonial Displacment

Nabile Far��s is a key author within postcolonial studies, due in particular to his uniquely expressive writing style. This article discusses writing style in his 1982 text, L�����tat perdu: pr��c��d�� du discours pratique de l���immigr��. Throughout the mainly French text, different alphabets are woven, alluding to the complexity of Algerian linguistic history and the importance of language in the construction and expression of identity. Meanwhile, the grammar and structure of the French language seems confused and at times illogical, raising further questions about use of a colonial language in a postcolonial context. Far��s���s writing style is avant-garde in nature, and deliberate intertextuality with the Surrealists situates the text within an avant-garde tradition in the French language, developing new ideas surrounding the effect of this written genre in the aftermath of colonialism.

"From Indomania to Indophobia":Thomas De Quincey's Providential Orientalism

Thomas De Quincey���s terrifying oriental nightmares, reported to sensational acclaim in his Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1821), have become a touchstone of romantic imperialism in recent studies of the literature of the period (Leask 1991; Barrell 1992 et al). De Quincey���s collocation of ���all creatures, birds, beasts, reptiles, all trees and plants, usages and appearances, that are found in all tropical regions��� in the hypnagogic hallucinations that characterized what he called ���the pains of opium��� seems to anticipate neatly Said���s theory of orientalism, whereby the orient was supplied by the west with ���a mentality, a genealogy, an atmosphere,��� the attitudinal basis as he argues for the continuing march of imperialism from the late eighteenth century. Yet, as Thomas Trautmann (1997) has pointed out, orientalist scholarship based in India and led by the influential Asiatic Society of Bengal in the late eighteenth century was extremely enthusiastic about Indian classical antiquity. The early orientalist scholarship posited ethnic, linguistic, cultural and religious links between Europe and India, while recognizing the greater antiquity of Indian civilization. This favourable attitude (which Trautmann calls ���Indomania���) was overtaken in the nineteenth century by disavowal of that scholarship and repugnance (which he calls ���Indophobia���), influenced by utilitarian and evangelical attitudes to colonialism. De Quincey���s lifespan covers this crucial period of change. My paper examines his evangelical upbringing and interest in biblical and orientalist scholarship to suggest his anxious investment in these modes of thinking. I will suggest that the bizarre orientalist fusions of his dreams can be better understood in the context of changing attitudes to the imperialism during the period. An examination of his work provides a far more dynamic understanding of the processes of orientalism than the binary model suggested by Said. The transformation implied from imperial scholarship to governance, I will suggest, is not irrelevant to a world which continues to pull apart on various grounds of race and ethnicity, and reflects on our own role in the academy today.

Identity and Geopolitics in Herg��'s <em>Adventures of Tintin</em>

This is a study of identity and geopolitics in Herg��'s Adventures of Tintin, a series of adventure comics created from 1929 to 1976. The Tintin comics became increasingly popular throughout the mid-twentieth century, and their creator, Herg��, is still a subject of intrigue in the press and popular publications. Recent work in popular geopolitics has pioneered the use of comics as a new type of source material in critical geography. Herg��'s approach to the comics format combines an iconic protagonist with detailed and textured environments that draw upon some of the geopolitical discourses of the twentieth century. Three forms of geopolitical meaning are identified within the Tintin comics: discourses of colonialism, European pre-eminence and anti-Americanism. These overlapping trends amount to different facets of one single discourse, which places European ideologies at the centre of its world-view. This is highlighted by focusing on three geographical spaces of the Tintin series, and by contextualising the life and selected works of Herg��. �� 2009 Taylor &amp; Francis.

Islamic fundamentalism since 1945:2nd revised and expanded edition

Featuring a brand new examination of Islamic fundamentalism in the wake of the Arab Spring, this fully revised and updated second edition of Islamic Fundamentalism since 1945 analyzes the roots and emergence of Islamic movements in the modern world and the main thinkers that inspired them.<br/><br/>Providing a much-needed historical overview of a fast-changing socio-political landscape, the main facets of Islamic fundamentalism are put in a global context, with a thematic debate of issues such as:<br/><br/>- the effects of colonialism on Islam<br/><br/>- secularism and the Islamic reaction<br/><br/>- Islam and violence in the 9/11 era<br/><br/>- globalization and transnational Islamist movements<br/><br/>- Islam in the wake of the Arab Awakening<br/><br/>Islamic Fundamentalism since 1945 provides an authoritative account of the causes and diversity of Islamic fundamentalism, a modern phenomenon which has grabbed the headlines as a grave threat to the West and a potentially revolutionary trend in the Middle East. It is a valuable resource for students and those interested in the history, effects and consequences of these Islamic movements

Contemporary Politics in the Middle East (Cambridge: Polity, 2011 ��� third edition)

The third edition of this dynamic book has been fully revised and updated to provide a comprehensive introduction to contemporary politics in the Middle East. Purposefully employing a clear thematic structure and including a wide range of case studies, data, visuals and further reading guidance the book explores and analyses the major issues which define the politics of this region of the globe.<br/>Milton-Edwards begins by introducing and explaining key concepts and debates and goes on to outline the impact of colonialism and its legacy, the rise of Arab nationalism and anti-colonial politics. She then examines major political issues affecting the region, such as American foreign policy, political Islam, war and conflict, political economy, democratization, ethnicity and the role of women. The book concludes by highlighting the politics of the region in the twenty-first century and the future challenges it faces. This is a perfect introduction for undergraduates, covering key political, economic and social debates and providing updates and guidance for further reading.<br/><br/>"The genius of this book is that it integrates together the different themes which run through Middle Eastern politics. The coherence of the approach which the author has adopted is indicated by the manner in which she has updated the work in this second edition. Despite the substantial changes which the East has undergone since 9/11 and the 2003 Gulf War, the original line of analysis retains all its force. It remains a key reference for all those who are seeking to understand the region's politics, whether undergraduates, postgraduates or lay readers."<br/>Tim Niblock, Exeter University<br/>"I welcome the new edition of this comprehensive guide to the politics of such an important region of the world. It combines sensible generalizations with useful case studies of particularly important subjects. It is a must for all those who want to understand the complex politics of the modern Middle East."<br/>Roger Owen, Harvard University<br/>"Beverley Milton-Edwards has produced an excellent book, which is both wide-ranging in its coverage and punchy in its arguments. As such, its functions are dual. It works well as a text book, introducing the general reader to key themes in the contemporary region, from oil politics to ethnicity, to women and nationalism. But it also works as a running commentary on key debates, such as the rile of colonialism and the relationship between Islam and democracy. In short, this is a book with attitude."<br/>Philip Robins, St Antony's College, Oxford