Lecture | The Visuals of Empire
The Visuals of Empire
- Farish A. Noor
- Date
- Friday 11 October 2024
- Time
- Location
- Online via Zoom
In some parts of Southeast Asia, there remains the tendency to re-present the history of European colonialism in terms of force and violence, with an emphasis on the wars and battles that were fought during the era of Empire. This presentation will look at one particular aspect of late colonial-capitalist rule, namely the arrival of photography and the production of postcards of the lands and peoples who came under colonial rule. It will be argued that colonial postcard production was very much part of the colonial enterprise itself, and that the postcards that were produced from the late 19th century to the 1930s reproduced many of the tropes and stereotypes of the Southeast Asian Other that had been in circulation for more than a century. In this respect such objects were hardly 'innocent' in themselves, and any attempt to read their meaning would have to take into account the circumstances of their production at the time.
This event is organised by the Decolonising Collective Leiden.
About the speaker
Farish A. Noor is Professor of Political History at the Faculty of Social Science (FOSS), Universitas Islam Internasional Indonesia (UIII). His work focuses mainly on 19th century colonial Southeast Asia, as well as the continuities between the colonial past and the postcolonial present. His recent works include The Long Shadow of the 19th Century: Critical Essays on Colonial Orientalism in Southeast Asia (Matahari Books, 2022) and Racial Difference and the Colonial Wars of 19th Century Southeast Asia (co-edited with Peter Carey), (Amsterdam University Press, 2020).
The event will be moderated by Dr. Densua Mumford, committee member of the Decolonising Collective and Assistant Professor at Leiden University College.