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…
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.
“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.”
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…
The implementation of a Euroamerican binary in nineteenth century Japan fuelled an erasure of indigenous gender identities; the subsequent impact of centring biological sex had significant effect on contemporary Japanese society.
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.
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…
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…
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…
