Culture and Imperialism
FINAL TAKE-HOME EXAM QUESTION:
Writing at the end of the 1990’s, Edward Said stated in Culture and Imperialism that:
“The authoritative, compelling image of the empire, which crept into and overtook so many procedures of intellectual mastery that are central in modern culture, finds its opposite in the renewable, almost sporty discontinuities of intellectual and secular impurities – mixed genres, unexpected combinations of tradition and novelty, political experiences based on communities of effort and interpretation (in the broadest sense of the word) rather than classes or corporations of possession, appropriation, and power” (p. 335).
Provide an interpretation of Said’s statement in relation to what you have learned in this course, and identify the possibilities for art in confronting the challenges of our current moment. Ground your discussion in an engagement with at least four of the following authors from our syllabus. (Feel free to also refer to the films – for example, The Bontoc Eulogy or Paul Gauguin: the Savage Dream — and other artists and visual projects we have viewed to support your response.)
Malek Alloula
Jananne Al-Ani
Roger Benjamin
Jeanne Canizzo
Zeynep Celik
Alison Donnell
Frantz Fanon
Simon Gikandi
Mary Harper
Ilona Katzew
John Mackenzie
Saloni Mathur
Nicholas Mirzoeff
WJT Mitchell
Linda Nochlin
James Riding In
Abigail Solomon-Godeau
Susan Sontag
Elspeth Van Vereen
Gerald Vizenor
Your essay should be 4-5 typed, double-spaced pages.
Please submit electronically to the prompt on the main page of the CCLE site