A Poem in Avar and Russia’s Soldiers in Ukraine
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A Poem in Avar and Russia’s Soldiers in Ukraine

by Zayra Badillo Castro For women, war is never over. Makhachkala is not a city often covered in the news.  The capital city of the Republic of Dagestan, an administrative entity under the Russian Federation located in the North Caucasus, has become a headline since the start of the war in Ukraine.  An important urban…

Mavo and the Space for Freedom: Masturbation, Anarchy and Autonomy in 1920s Japan
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Mavo and the Space for Freedom: Masturbation, Anarchy and Autonomy in 1920s Japan

Murayama’s photographic series Kitanai Odori displays Murayama’s body in the throes of an ecstatic nude performance, demonstrating a visual embodiment of an emancipated self. Mavo artists challenged the Japanese government’s social matrix and programme of homogeneity, and for it the group suffered dearly.

Particles Beyond Sight: Black Subjectivity and Creolization in Denis Williams’ Other Leopards
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Particles Beyond Sight: Black Subjectivity and Creolization in Denis Williams’ Other Leopards

“There was a silence at the heart of the flying bodies; there was a soundless sound; there was a motion meaningless as the awful collision of particles beyond sight; there was an energy purposeful of intention but beyond understanding. A man must lose his life to find it.”

Review of John Parker’s In My Time of Dying: a History of Death and the Dead in West Africa (Princeton University Press, 2021)
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Review of John Parker’s In My Time of Dying: a History of Death and the Dead in West Africa (Princeton University Press, 2021)

By Amelia Storey On a recent visit to my local arts centre, I found myself looking down onto their café’s courtyard from the first floor exhibition room. To my astonishment, I realised that the café tables were positioned immediately next to tombstones – close enough to lean your chair back against. I recognised then that…

Queer Baroque: Nikko Mausoleum
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Queer Baroque: Nikko Mausoleum

The construction of modern sexuality emphasises the sameness of biological gender between sexual object and sexual subject, which did not operate in Japan as it could not accommodate these existing gender constructions. The intense connection of the Nikkō Tōshōgu to the Tokugawa meant that it was intrinsically connected to a time that was becoming increasingly demonised as deviant.

SOAS History Blog Podcast, Ep. 3: Sudanese History through Music
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SOAS History Blog Podcast, Ep. 3: Sudanese History through Music

More about this episode Saffa Khalil Interviewee Saffa is an interdisciplinary researcher and recent SOAS graduate in History and African Studies. Her work is mainly concerned with the ability of music to shape our understanding of transnational identities and historiography.  Dissertation Abstract: From intimate moments to more comprehensive historical events, Sudanese music provides a lens…

The Menopausal Matriarchs of West Africa
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The Menopausal Matriarchs of West Africa

by Amelia Storey Any exploration into West African history soon surfaces contradictions and blatant neglect when it comes to older, postmenopausal women. Colonial-era sources tend to overlook older women entirely, yet, even so, glimpses seep through of the esteemed female elder. The status of postmenopausal women, its origins, manifestations and development during the twentieth century…

Remembering the French Nation through Colonial Forgetting: An Analysis of the Exhibition of Hervé di Rosa’s ‘1794 – L’abolition de l’an II’ (Part of the series ‘L’Histoire en peinture de l’Assemblée nationale’, 1991)
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Remembering the French Nation through Colonial Forgetting: An Analysis of the Exhibition of Hervé di Rosa’s ‘1794 – L’abolition de l’an II’ (Part of the series ‘L’Histoire en peinture de l’Assemblée nationale’, 1991)

by Darja Wolfmeier Résumé: Depuis 1991, une série de 13 fresques d’Hervé di Rosa est accrochée aux murs de l’Assemblée nationale française, représentant des étapes majeures de l’histoire constitutionnelle française – l’une d’entre elles étant l’Abolition de l’esclavage dans les colonies en 1794. Cette représentation ne reproduit pas seulement des stéréotypes racistes, mais s’inscrit également dans…