scholarly journals Lights, Camera, Lumino-Politics: LightingThe Searchers, from Paraffin to LED

2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 184-202
Author(s):  
Pansy Duncan
Keyword(s):  
Film Studies ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
Colonial History ◽  
Political Struggle ◽  
Reading Methods ◽  
Sound Film ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of ◽  
Control Light ◽  
Film Form

Across the past decade or so, “politically committed” strains of film studies have undergone a much-vaunted aesthetic turn. It is now widely acknowledged that political struggle is as likely to converge in and around the tangible, audible and/or visible surface of the filmic image as it is to involve forces operating “within,” “beyond” or “behind” that surface. Yet while this so-called aesthetic turn has restored questions of film sound, film form and film colour to the film-political agenda, questions of film lighting are yet to feature prominently in these discussions. This essay addresses this situation through a re-reading of John Ford's The Searchers (1956), a film whose ambivalent engagement with America's troubled settler-colonial history has seen it mortgaged to depth-oriented reading methods. Countering these approaches, I argue that, even before the filmic image signifies or symptomatizes settler-colonial struggle, that struggle is played out across the surface of the filmic image in the form of efforts to control the diffusion, distribution and dissemination of light itself. In arguing this, I will show how The Searchers situates its own formal and technical efforts to regulate light's movement across the surface of the cinematic image within a history of settler-colonial efforts to regulate light's movement across varied domestic, civic and geographic surfaces. In doing so, I contend, the film both foregrounds cinema's complicity in, and delivers a searing critique of, Western efforts to control light.

Introduction

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Jordan Schonig
Keyword(s):  
Film Studies ◽  
Formal Analysis ◽  
Film Theory ◽  
Gestalt Psychology ◽  
Film Criticism ◽  
Philosophical Intuition ◽  
History Of ◽  
Generic Structures ◽  
Temporal Flow ◽  
Film Form

The Introduction examines why “movement” is often invoked as a term in film criticism and film theory but is rarely analyzed as an aspect of film form. The reason for this is twofold. First, because film theory has largely examined movement only as a defining property of the cinematic medium, movement is rarely singled out in film criticism. Second, because film theory has inherited the philosophical intuition that form is primarily spatial rather than temporal, formal analysis in film studies tends to break up the temporal flow of film into static units, such as in shot breakdowns and frame analyses. In film studies, then, “form” and “movement” are conceptually incompatible. As a means of thinking motion and form together, the Introduction proposes the concept of “motion forms,” generic structures, patterns, or shapes of motion. The Introduction then explores the philosophical roots of the motion form in phenomenology and Gestalt psychology, and explains how such a way of thinking about cinematic motion differs from other phenomenological approaches in film studies. Finally, the introduction outlines the six chapters of the book, each of which investigates a particular motion form that emerges throughout the history of cinema.

The Regional Archive at Addi Qäyyeh, Eritrea

1998 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 423-425
Author(s):  
Irma Taddia
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
General Information ◽  
Historical Study ◽  
Colonial History ◽  
Field Of Study ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Government

During the past few years of researching in Eritrea I had the chance to discover an important but little known source for the history of colonial Eritrea that the government that came to power in 1991 is evaluating: the regional archive of Addi Qäyyeh. This archive is in the main town of an area of the Eritrean highlands, Akkälä Guzay, and comprises a large number of documents on Italian colonialism. This documentation is exceptional; indeed, the great bulk of such documents remain in Italy, conserved in the unexploited Archivio Eritrea within the Ministerio degli Affari Esteri in Rome. To my knowledge the regional archive at Addi Qäyyeh is the only remaining colonial source in Eritrea, if we exclude some minor religious archives, and its interest is unquestionable.As noted, the main sources for colonial Eritrea are in Italy. The documents in the Archivio Eritrea amply testify to the importance of this material. This deals with colonial papers, inquiries, historical and geographical documentation, anthropological materials, and adminstrative papers—altogether, a large amount of material as yet little utilized by scholars. The colonial history of Eritrea remains in many respects a very poor field of study, and recent work has considered only a few documents in this rich collection. However, the Archivio Eritrea is not exhaustive—a complementary source offers a different set of materials amenable to historical study.Many documents preserved at Addi Qäyyeh have the same importance and share many subjects with those in Rome, while others are unique. Here I would just like to mention briefly some of the latter, and offer general information to intending historians of colonial Eritrea.

Northern Rhodesia Tax Stamps as an Aid to Chronology

1987 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
pp. 363-368
Author(s):  
Mwelwa C. Musambachime
Keyword(s):  
Oral Traditions ◽  
Colonial History ◽  
The Past ◽  
Mnemonic Devices ◽  
Early Colonial ◽  
History Of ◽  
Tax Payers

It is well known that historians studying preliterate societies, in which oral traditions are the main sources of data used in reconstructing the past, have experienced problems in ‘arranging’ events in their order of occurrence. To establish chronology, historians have used a number of aids such as mnemonic devices and occurrences of eclipses and droughts which are then correlated to the western calendar. This paper discusses an aid which, used together with oral traditions, can be very useful in reconstructing the early colonial history of Northern Rhodesia between 1910 and 1927. This aid is the tax stamp given to all tax payers during this period. To understand the importance of the tax stamps to chronology, perhaps it is best to begin with a description as to how events were recorded in the precolonial period.

scholarly journals Staging the Past: The Period Room in New Zealand

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Kimberley Jane Stephenson
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Colonial History ◽  
The Past ◽  
European Settlement ◽  
Display Mode ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Museum Professionals ◽  
History Of ◽  
Physical Changes ◽  
Over Time

<p>Before 1940, few of the nation’s museums actively collected or displayed artefacts associated with the history of European settlement in New Zealand. Over the following three decades, an interest in ‘colonial history’ blossomed and collections grew rapidly. Faced with the challenge of displaying material associated with the homes of early settlers, museums adopted the period room as a strategy of display. The period room subsequently remained popular with museum professionals until the 1980s, when the type of history that it had traditionally been used to represent was increasingly brought into question. Filling a gap in the literature that surrounds museums and their practices in New Zealand, this thesis attempts to chart the meteoric rise and fall of the period room in New Zealand. Taking the two period rooms that were created for the New Zealand Centennial Exhibition in 1939 as its starting point, the thesis begins by considering the role that the centennials, jubilees and other milestones celebrated around New Zealand in the 1940s and 1950s played in the development of period rooms in this country, unpacking the factors that fuelled the popularity of this display mode among exhibition organisers and museum professionals. The thesis then charts the history of the period room in the context of three metropolitan museums – the Otago Early Settlers Museum, the Canterbury Museum, and the Dominion Museum – looking at the physical changes that were made to these displays over time, the attitudes that informed these changes, and the role that period rooms play in these institutions today.</p>

scholarly journals Up Close and Personal: Feeling the Past at Urban Archaeological Sites

2016 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
pp. 43-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tracy Ireland
Keyword(s):  
Archaeological Sites ◽  
Colonial History ◽  
Archaeological Remains ◽  
Complex Matrix ◽  
Social Emotional ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of ◽  
Personal Feeling ◽  
The City

In this article I focus on the emotional, sensory and aesthetic affordances of urban archaeological remains conserved in situ and explore what these ruins ‘do’ in the context of the layered urban fabric of the city. I am concerned with a particular category of archaeological remains: those that illustrate the colonial history of settler nations, exploring examples in Sydney and Montreal. Using Sara Ahmed’s concept of ‘affective economies’ – where emotions work to stick things together and align individuals with communities – I tease out some of the distinctive aspects of this particular form of social/emotional/material entanglement, that appears to create stable objects of memory and identity from a much more contingent and complex matrix of politics, social structures, and the more-than-human materiality of the city. I argue that an understanding of the affective qualities of ruins and archaeological traces, and of how people feel heritage and the past through aesthetic and sensuous experiences of materiality, authenticity, locality and identity, bring us closer to understanding how heritage works. 

Radiocarbon Dates for Sub-Saharan Africa

1961 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 137-139 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. M. Fagan
Keyword(s):  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
African History ◽  
Colonial History ◽  
Radiocarbon Dates ◽  
Carbon 14 ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of ◽  
Absolute Dating ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Southern Rhodesia

In the belief that the results of this system of absolute dating are of considerable interest to historians and others concerned with the pre-colonial history of Africa, the Journal of African History has decided to publish from time to time lists of dates since c. 1000 B.C. which are being established for sub-Saharan Africa by the Radiocarbon (Carbon 14) method. (A description of this technique will be found in Professor F. E. Zeuner's Dating the Past.) The Rhodes-Livingstone Museum has kindly agreed to compile these lists for the Journal, and would be most grateful if those possessing relevant results could send a note of them to the Director, the Rhodes-Livingstone Museum, P.O. Box 124, Livingstone, Northern Rhodesia. The attention of readers is also drawn to the new dates for Southern Rhodesia published in the appendix to Mr Roger Summers'ps article in this number of the Journal.

Manifestations of the Flying Dutchman: On Materializing Ghosts and (Not) Remembering the Colonial Past

2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-205
Author(s):  
Agnes Andeweg
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Real Object ◽  
Technological Advancement ◽  
Colonial History ◽  
Spectral Character ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Future ◽  
Technological Developments ◽  
History Of ◽  
Wide Dissemination

This article investigates remediations of the Flying Dutchman legend – the story about a ghost ship doomed to sail the oceans forever – in English and Dutch sources from the nineteenth and twentieth century. It explains the popularity and wide dissemination of the Flying Dutchman by interpreting the story, firstly, within the context of Anglo-Dutch colonial competition and, secondly, within the context of new technological developments, paying particular attention to the moments when the Flying Dutchman seems to lose its spectral character and becomes a real object or person. Of the two interpretations of the spectre put forward here – staging colonial history versus staging technological advancement –, the second seems to be the more dominant throughout the history of continuous remediation and adaptation of the Flying Dutchman. When the ghost materializes, temporality is reversed: the focus shifts from the present's fraught relation to the past to the present's imagination of the future. In the dissemination of the figure itself however the colonial dimension is often still present.

MUKOMBOZI AND THE MONGANGA: THE VIOLENCE OF HEALING IN THE 1944 KITAWALIST UPRISING

Africa ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 85 (3) ◽  
pp. 417-436 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicole Eggers
Keyword(s):  
African History ◽  
Colonial History ◽  
Spiritual Power ◽  
Political Struggle ◽  
Critical Questions ◽  
History Of ◽  
Eastern Congo ◽  
The Way

ABSTRACTThis article investigates the fraught relationship between violence and healing in Central African history. Looking at the case study of one of the largest uprisings in the colonial history of Congo – the Lobutu–Masisi Kitawalist uprising of 1944 – the article asks how the theories of power that animated the uprising might help better illuminate the nature and role of violence not only in the uprising itself but in the broader history of the region. Drawing attention to the centrality of discourses that relate to the moral and immoral use of disembodied spiritual power (puissance/nguvu/force) in the uprising, the article evokes critical questions about the deeper history of such discourses and the imaginaries and choreographies of violence that accompanied them. Thinking about violence in this way not only breaks down imagined lines between productive and destructive/legitimate and illegitimate violence by highlighting that such distinctions are always contentious and negotiated, but also demonstrates that the theories of power animating such negotiations must be understood not as tangential to the larger anti-colonial political struggle of Bushiri and his followers, but as central to that struggle. Moreover, it paves the way towards thinking about how these same theories of power might animate negotiations of legitimacy in more recent violent contexts in Eastern Congo.

Towards a History of Decolonization

Itinerario ◽  
1987 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 95-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
H.L. Wesseling
Keyword(s):  
Second World War ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
Colonial History ◽  
World War ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of ◽  
Second World

Decolonization has finished. It definitely belongs to the past, but somehow it has refused to become history. A great deal has already been written on this subject, and yet it seems that there is little to say about it. After the Second World War, the colonized countries wanted to become independent, struggled with their oppressors and threw off the yoke of colonial rule. Within a few years they all achieved their aim. That is the song that has now already been sung for about thirty years, in various keys, it is true, but with a remarkable consistency of tune and melody. The entire colonial history seems to have been no more than a prologue to an inevitable and triumphant independence. A new Whig interpretation of history has come into being.

Eating Her Curries and Kway

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicole Tarulevicz
Keyword(s):  
Home Economics ◽  
Food Culture ◽  
Chewing Gum ◽  
Colonial History ◽  
The Past ◽  
Production And Consumption ◽  
History Of ◽  
Public Behavior ◽  
Substantial Change ◽  
Alternative Reading

While eating is a universal experience, for Singaporeans it carries strong national connotations. The popular Singaporean–English phrase “Die die must try” is not so much hyperbole as it is a reflection of the lengths that Singaporeans will go to find great dishes. This book argues that in a society that has undergone substantial change in a relatively short amount of time, food serves Singaporeans as a poignant connection to the past. Covering the period from British settlement in 1819 to the present and focusing on the post-1965 postcolonial era, the book tells the story of Singapore through the production and consumption of food. Analyzing a variety of sources that range from cookbooks to architectural and city plans, the book offers a thematic history of this unusual country, which was colonized by the British and operated as a port within Malaya, but which is without a substantial pre-colonial history. Connecting food culture to the larger history of Singapore, the book discusses various topics including domesticity and home economics, housing and architecture, advertising, and the regulation of food-related manners and public behavior such as hawking, littering, and chewing gum. Moving away from the predominantly political and economic focus of other histories of Singapore, the book provides an important alternative reading of Singaporean society.

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