Archaeology as a Weapon: Long-lasting legacies of colonialism and nationalism in Israel, Palestine, Cyprus and Greece

Marie-Louise Winbladh

In Israel, Palestine, Cyprus and Greece, the reconstruction of the past through archaeology has been used to strengthen national identity. Narratives about the past and origin myths have been constructed for political purposes. Cyprus and Palestine have both suffered from British colonialism since the early twentieth century, which has had a profound influence on their cultural heritage. Through nationalism, archaeology has been exploited by far-right movements and political parties to claim ownership of heritage and has become an efficient political tool. In Israel, archaeology and religion have been exploited to construct the Israeli state and still play a crucial role. The country claims to be the conqueror of Palestine under the protection of God, who they believe gave them possession of the land. Western religious groups are convinced that it is the religious duty of Christians to support the modern nation-state of Israel. Biblical archaeology has become an ultra-religious American speciality, marked by fraud and pseudoresearch. Notorious smuggling scandals were staged by American Christian multibillionaires buying artefacts looted from the National Museum of Iraq and other countries. Looting, plundering and blacklisting are among the most serious problems in Cyprus, causing irreparable damage to artefacts, monuments and society. Palestine’s rich archaeological, historical, and religious heritage has been undermined by occupation and land confiscation. Hundreds of sites have been looted during the Israeli occupation, and an illegal trade of ancient artefacts has occurred on a large scale. Populism is frequently associated with extreme nationalism and racism. Over the past few years, white nationalists and supremacists have seized the history of Greece and Rome. White nationalists and neo-Nazis in the US have used the slogan “Classics Made Great Again” showing their obsession with ancient sculptures and their alleged whiteness. When visiting Jerusalem, the Trump administration promoted an evangelical program where the politics of moral superiority is associated with white Christian supremacy.

Fashion’s Missing Masses: The representation of marginalized populations in collections and exhibitions of dress

Edited by Kenna Libes, Bard Graduate Center

'Fashion’s Missing Masses' fills a gap in literature on museums and fashion collections and focuses on the display of clothing and fashion that has historically been left out of the canon. The fifteen essays in this volume span topics on Indigenous and traditional dress; disabled and fat bodies; and queer and ethnic identities. Their authors study the ways that dress and textiles have been collected, displayed, and often ignored across a century and a half of museum exhibitions. Representation and inclusion in fashion museums is a new and rapidly evolving area of research in the reexamination of dress history. These chapters provide unique information and perspectives on curation, collections management, conservation, and research, which will be valuable to a wide group of audiences working, teaching, and learning in and about museums. This volume touches on practical concerns of exhibition, including mannequin availability and difficulties of mounting dress, as well as broader questions of scholarship and activism that will be key for educators and researchers who wish to stay abreast of developments in this field. Diversity in fashion is a hot topic, and understanding the line between tokenization and representation in spaces of institutional authority is crucial to learning how we can better serve our diverse populations in the teaching of history.

Italian Comics in the New Millennium. Vol. 1. Continuity and Innovation

Edited by Alessio Aletta, University of Toronto

The first issue of a two-volume collection, this book explores the transformation of Italian comics in the new millennium, offering a comprehensive analysis of the evolving landscape of “fumetti” through both historical and contemporary lenses. The book examines iconic serials from Disney Italia and Sergio Bonelli Editore, alongside innovative auteur-driven works, providing readers with an in-depth look at how Italy’s most influential comics publishers have adapted to shifting cultural and industrial contexts. Contributions focus on the challenges of maintaining the essence of beloved series while integrating modern sensibilities, exploring shifts in audience, narrative strategies, and thematic explorations. The volumes also delve into the works of influential Italian comic artists, from the groundbreaking legacy of Andrea Pazienza to the contemporary innovations of Gipi and Zerocalcare, offering fresh insights into narrative styles, intermedial experimentation, and socio-political commentary. With contributions from leading scholars in the field, this collection highlights the vibrant, dynamic nature of Italian comics and their growing international recognition. This work provides a vital resource for anyone interested in the intersection of popular culture, artistic innovation, and the evolving nature of graphic storytelling. Drawing on a rich variety of methodological approaches, the book serves as both a reference tool and a thought-provoking exploration of the role of comics in contemporary society in the Italian context.

Italian Comics in the New Millennium. Vol. 2. New Scenarios, New Forms, New Themes

Edited by Alessio Aletta, University of Toronto

Volume II of 'Italian Comics in the New Millennium' offers an in-depth exploration of the dynamic transformations in the Italian comics industry, focusing on the intersections of innovation, tradition, and contemporary socio-political issues. This collection highlights the rapidly evolving production and consumption landscape, including the rise of self-publishing, digital comics, and the impact of online platforms. The book examines the role of digital comics in reshaping narrative and aesthetic possibilities, while also addressing the changing working conditions of comics creators in the digital age. Key themes explored in this volume include the integration of comics into journalism; the emergence of reality-based narratives; and the growing representation of gender, sexuality, and immigration in contemporary graphic novels. Special attention is given to new waves of Italian comics that explore regional identities, historical memory, and personal lineage, offering a diverse range of case studies from emerging authors and established figures. This collection is a vital resource for researchers, students, and professionals in comics studies, media, and cultural studies. It provides an extensive overview of the most recent developments in Italian comics, offering a blend of critical analysis and fresh perspectives on the medium’s cultural significance. With its focus on evolving narrative forms and innovative production models, this volume serves as both a reference tool and a thought-provoking exploration of the present – and future – of Italian comics.

Pedagogical Reckoning: Decolonizing and Degendering the Art Historical Canon in the Classroom and Museum

Edited by Gillian Greenhill Hannum, Manhattanville University and Sooran Choi, University of Vermont

'Pedagogical Reckoning: Decolonizing and Degendering the Art Historical Canon in the Classroom and Museum' brings together leading voices in art history, museum studies, and pedagogy to confront the Eurocentric and patriarchal foundations of traditional art historical education. This timely anthology provides a range of actionable strategies for reshaping curricula, exhibitions, and research through the lenses of decoloniality, gender justice, and global inclusion. Edited by Sooran Choi and Gillian Greenhill Hannum, the volume includes contributions from scholars, artists, and educators across institutional contexts—from large research universities to community colleges and art schools. Its chapters span three key areas: inclusive classroom pedagogy, critical museum and curatorial practice, and decolonial research methodologies. Essays explore intersectional frameworks informed by postcolonial theory, feminist critique, queer studies, and ethnic studies, while also providing practical tools such as sample assignments, case studies, and curatorial models. Uniquely, this anthology integrates scholarly analysis with pedagogical reflection, offering readers both conceptual frameworks and concrete applications. It builds on recent literature such as 'Teaching South and Southeast Asian Art' and 'Expanding the Parameters of Feminist Artivism', while extending the conversation through its focus on classroom agency, community-responsive teaching, and institutional reckoning. Ideal for art history instructors; museum professionals; and students in anthropology, cultural studies, and education, 'Pedagogical Reckoning' serves as both a critical resource and a methodological guide. It is suitable for classroom adoption, professional development, and curriculum planning, and will appeal to anyone committed to transforming the way we teach, curate, and write about art.

Cinematic Ecosystems: Screen Encounters with More-than-Humans in the Era of Environmental Crisis

Edited by Mary Hegedus, York University and Jessica Mulvogue, University of St Andrews

Motivated by the exigency of climate change, 'Cinematic Ecosystems: Screen Encounters with More-than-Humans in the Era of Environmental Crisis' takes cinema to be an audiovisual form whose creation and meaning are deeply connected to more-than-human worlds. As part of the third wave of ecocinema studies, this collection gathers contributions on multiple cinema forms from an international group of scholars and artists who offer diverse, critical perspectives that respond to the question: How does cinema help or hinder us in coming to know the more-than-human world? The collection homes in on the concept of the ecosystem as a biological and technological system that comprises a network of inter-relational living and their inanimate elemental affordances to explore encounters with cinema as a material object and practice, a spectatorial experience, and a representational text. The chapters cover environmental topics that span five continents and multiple histories. This book will be of special interest to film studies scholars and artists interested in cinema and climate change, environmental justice, and posthumanism.

Manet’s Ironic Duplicity: Hamlet, Baudelaire, and Masculinity

James H. Rubin, Stony Brook, State University of New York

The painter Edouard Manet (1832-1883) was a central figure for momentous and lasting changes in the realm of art that still resound today. His art speaks directly to the philosophical issues and political conflicts of his own time and is therefore deeply embedded in the development of modernity. 'Manet’s Ironic Duplicity' focuses on that situation and the historically conscious artist’s sometimes ambivalent struggle for authenticity. Rather than another full chronological monograph, the book is an interdisciplinary study organized around key concepts. It reframes the major, and sometimes disparate issues in Manet scholarship by focusing on a never-before-considered overriding theme—duplicity—which itself is multiple in its manifestations and variants, hence 'duplicities'. Reversing the usual narrative, this study deconstructs and enlightens the myth of the heroic artist struggling for individual and original vision by revealing how so much of Manet’s creativity and irony was prompted by frustrations due to repressive politics, censorship, and challenges to his sense of self. A key aspect of the latter was his masculinity. Although Manet’s association with the ideas of the poet and critic Charles Baudelaire is well known, never has Baudelaire’s essay 'On the Essence of Laughter and the Comic in the Visual Arts' been brought to bear on the concept of irony in Manet’s work. Given Baudelaire’s rapprochement between actors and artists, as well as Manet’s familiarity with the theatrical milieu, the book focuses on Manet’s two little-studied representations of 'Hamlet' as both the starting and end point of its analysis. It then concludes with a re-reading of the painter’s illustrated letters to women as a dissimulation of his final, fatal illness in order to maintain his masculine honor.

Surrealism and Ecology

Edited by Iveta Slavkova, American University Paris, France et al.

'Surrealism and Ecology' is the first volume to consider the intersections of these two fields. It addresses the contribution of the avant-gardes in thinking about the relationship of humans with their environment in the context of massive environmental upheaval in the twentieth century. This volume explores the significant role of Surrealist artists and writers within the history of critical thinking about nature and environment over the last hundred years. It approaches ecology both as a mode of thinking about the many interconnections of life and as a way of experiencing and knowing the world. The relationship of humans with their environment is of paramount significance within contemporary discourse, and the contribution of the historical avant-gardes to this topic remains largely underexplored. In addressing this gap, the book presents a diverse selection of analyses of the ways in which the Surrealists have thought about and represented nature and the human place within it. It emphasises how Surrealism’s interventions in connecting seemingly distinct domains of thought and phenomena can be understood as relevant to more recent developments in the practice of ecological thought. Surrealist practices and the academic field of Surrealism studies are broad in scope and include not only visual art, but also poetry and literature, film, philosophy, exhibition design, and experimental practice. This volume includes contributions from established and developing scholars working across disciplines and locations, who address such varied practices and engage with analyses from multiple perspectives. The international and trans-Atlantic history of Surrealism is well-represented in this book, with over half the texts exploring the work of European Surrealists in exile during the Second World War or the art and environmental and political activism of Surrealists in the Caribbean and throughout the Americas.

The Insides of the Outsider: Women and the Poetics of Space and Place

Edited by Mariangela Ugarelli

When asked if being a woman had a negative impact on her ability to succeed as a writer, Argentine poet Alejandra Pizarnik stated that, even if not a physical impediment, being a woman in a patriarchal society is ‘a tragedy’ in itself. She followed this comment by saying: ‘What matters is what we do with our own tragedies’. Beyond sex assigned at birth, feminized bodies around the world share a similar phenomenological experience, which is dictated by a complicated relationship to space. Before setting pen to paper, the woman writer, a monster herself within patriarchal discourse, must confront the role society has set for her. For a writer in a feminized body, thus, the act of writing never begins with a tabula rasa but with a refusal and a challenge, an ushering out of the supposed ‘eden’ of the domestic. The question of the women-writer’s space is further exacerbated when considering matters of intersectionality. The poetics of space and place change within the confines of different geopolitical structures and their relations amongst each other. How do they shift when the center becomes de-centered and writing stems not from a place of political power but from the quieted voices of minor literature, queer and racialized bodies or subalternized latitudes? This volume will attempt to address these questions with input from a diverse group of scholars dealing with an equally diverse corpus. North and Latin America converse with Europe while ‘genre’ literature, minor literature and ‘gendered’ literatures take center stage. By taking into account a wide array of cultural objects, from poetry and children’s literature to Gothic tales and television shows, this collection of articles reveals the profound link between space and the female experience through the lens of art and literature.

Manet’s Ironic Duplicity: Hamlet, Baudelaire, and Masculinity

James H. Rubin, Stony Brook, State University of New York

The painter Edouard Manet (1832-1883) was a central figure for momentous and lasting changes in the realm of art that still resound today. His art speaks directly to the philosophical issues and political conflicts of his own time and is therefore deeply embedded in the development of modernity. 'Manet’s Ironic Duplicity' focuses on that situation and the historically conscious artist’s sometimes ambivalent struggle for authenticity. Rather than another full chronological monograph, the book is an interdisciplinary study organized around key concepts. It reframes the major, and sometimes disparate issues in Manet scholarship by focusing on a never-before-considered overriding theme—duplicity—which itself is multiple in its manifestations and variants, hence 'duplicities'. Reversing the usual narrative, this study deconstructs and enlightens the myth of the heroic artist struggling for individual and original vision by revealing how so much of Manet’s creativity and irony was prompted by frustrations due to repressive politics, censorship, and challenges to his sense of self. A key aspect of the latter was his masculinity. Although Manet’s association with the ideas of the poet and critic Charles Baudelaire is well known, never has Baudelaire’s essay 'On the Essence of Laughter and the Comic in the Visual Arts' been brought to bear on the concept of irony in Manet’s work. Given Baudelaire’s rapprochement between actors and artists, as well as Manet’s familiarity with the theatrical milieu, the book focuses on Manet’s two little-studied representations of 'Hamlet' as both the starting and end point of its analysis. It then concludes with a re-reading of the painter’s illustrated letters to women as a dissimulation of his final, fatal illness in order to maintain his masculine honor.

¿Invisibles? Trans-identidades en la España contemporánea

Edited by Ana M. Corbalán, The University of Alabama

‘¿Invisibles? Trans-identidades en la España contemporánea’ analiza la experiencia, corporeidad, identidad y representación de las personas trans en las producciones culturales españolas. Este volumen examina los fenómenos culturales que giran en torno a las trans-identidades, analizando la visibilidad del colectivo en los últimos 50 años y respondiendo a estas preguntas: ¿Cómo se representa a la comunidad trans en España? ¿Qué modelos de referencia hay en las producciones culturales? ¿Cómo combatir la transfobia existente? El libro denuncia la ausencia de un espacio realmente inclusivo en el panorama cultural y plantea la necesidad de aumentar la agencia y derechos de las identidades trans en el discurso público. Sus trece capítulos ofrecen una variedad de referentes sobre la diversidad genérico-sexual para visibilizar a unas personas vulnerables cuyas experiencias se han visto reducidas en numerosas ocasiones a rechazo y discriminación.

Recasting the Bygone Witch: Representations of Lesser-Known Witches in Popular Culture

Edited by Aine Norris, Old Dominion University and Mariaelena DiBenigno, William & Mary

'Recasting the Bygone Witch: Representations of Lesser-Known Witches in Popular Culture' is an interdisciplinary collection that explores witches across time, culture, and scholarly space. It brings together voices and perspectives from literature, game studies, political science, history, and more to examine the overlooked or misrepresented. Timely and profoundly relevant, the collection asks readers to participate in conversations about the bygone witch as a historical, cultural, and political figure while examining who gets remembered or labeled as a witch, and why. 'Recasting the Bygone Witch' features scholarship from an interdisciplinary, international cohort of scholars using a variety of methods to analyze and contextualize bygone witches in discussions of power, identity, and resistance. From biographical examinations of Pamela Colman Smith, Marjorie Cameron, Sybil Leek, and Urška Klakočar Zupančič, to art and literary analyses of The Fires of Bride, Thomas Middleton, and William Hogarth, and reimagining the witch’s presence in college classrooms, scholars place the bygone witch in conversation across disciplines. The collection also examines how witches manifest in popular culture, specifically the depiction of witches in (and on) social media, video games, and film. With a blend of rigorous research and accessible examples of bygone witches across socio-cultural spaces, 'Recasting the Bygone Witch: Representations of Lesser-Known Witches in Popular Culture' is an act of reclamation and preservation.

Captioned Landscapes: Intermedial Combinations Beyond the Human

Volume 1: Places

Edited by Marco Maggi, Università della Svizzera italiana, Switzerland

'Captioned Landscapes' is the first comprehensive monograph on intermedial combinations between writing and natural environments. Writing is traditionally considered as a distinctive sign of the human; interrogating its interactions with the world beyond the human means questioning its presumed centrality and separateness. The multiple angles from which these combinations are studied in this two-volume anthology are relevant for questions regarding the ontologies that structure the relationships between human and non-human, as well as for questions of ideology, interculturality, memory, gender and the postcolonial. Landscape reception studies usually assume not only a distinction but also a separation between the human and the non-human, attributing the privilege of subjectivity only to the former. This dualistic paradigm has been recently replaced by intermedial ecocriticism, which conceives the relationship between human and non-human as a negotiation without rigid and pre-established roles. However, attention has been focused so far on the representations (verbal, but also visual) of these relationships. In this monograph, for the first time, instead of representations of natural environments (in writing or other media), intermedial combinations between writing and landscapes are taken into account; particular attention is also paid, in the second volume, to verbal and visual representations of these combinations. The book addresses Intermedial and Visual Studies and Environmental Humanities scholars. Because of the specific focus on combinations of writing, landscape, and verbal and visual representations of the latter, the book is also aimed at scholars of Literature, Garden and Landscape Design and History, and Visual Arts. By virtue of the case study approach in the chapters and the general theoretical framework provided in the introduction, the book also addresses students of all these disciplines.

The Analog Revisited

Questioning the Technical Image in a Digital Age

Edited by renée c. hoogland, Wayne State University

This collection of essays explores the complexities of the photographic image in the wake of the digital turn. While the digital image has, in effect, effaced the necessity for a pre-existing “reality,” the presumed indexical function of the photographic image has by no means disappeared—technical images continue to organize, if not generate, our shifting modes of perception. How do we reconsider analog photographs, given that they can and are likely to show up on a variety of digital platforms? How do we re-view technical images that make the invisible visible, given that current imaging technologies generate new visualities as such? How does the digital force us to reconceptualize the analog? Individual chapters engage with a range of technical images approached from various critical and/or theoretical perspectives. One focuses on composite photographic portraits in eugenics and in contemporary art through Deleuze and Guattari’s notion of facility. Another assumes a pedagogical approach that pursues the photographic as a metaphor for knowledge practices through staging embodied encounters with digital living. Another explores the work of the artwork through a study of contemporary art photography by means of object-oriented ontology and new aesthetic realism. Yet another presents an infographic genealogy that tracks the technical image across a modernist telematic media-verse. One chapter offers a critical exploration of a silent film hero through her various analog and digital incarnations. Another explores a Lacanian-inspired perspective on the consequences of the shift from analog to digital for the subjects in front of the camera, the posers. One chapter focuses on the analog Anthropocene through an investigation of an Italian film factory and its material and human legacies. A final contribution investigates the relationship between photography and disaster through a discussion of a triple disaster—the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear accident that occurred in Japan in 2011.

Captioned Landscapes: Intermedial Combinations Beyond the Human

Volume 2: Representations

Edited by Marco Maggi, Università della Svizzera italiana, Switzerland

'Captioned Landscapes' is the first comprehensive monograph on intermedial combinations between writing and natural environments. Writing is traditionally considered as a distinctive sign of the human; interrogating its interactions with the world beyond the human means questioning its presumed centrality and separateness. The multiple angles from which these combinations are studied in this two-volume anthology are relevant for questions regarding the ontologies that structure the relationships between human and non-human, as well as for questions of ideology, interculturality, memory, gender and the postcolonial. Landscape reception studies usually assume not only a distinction but also a separation between the human and the non-human, attributing the privilege of subjectivity only to the former. This dualistic paradigm has been recently replaced by intermedial ecocriticism, which conceives the relationship between human and non-human as a negotiation without rigid and pre-established roles. However, attention has been focused so far on the representations (verbal, but also visual) of these relationships. In this monograph, for the first time, instead of representations of natural environments (in writing or other media), intermedial combinations between writing and landscapes are taken into account; particular attention is also paid, in the second volume, to verbal and visual representations of these combinations. The book addresses Intermedial and Visual Studies and Environmental Humanities scholars. Because of the specific focus on combinations of writing, landscape, and verbal and visual representations of the latter, the book is also aimed at scholars of Literature, Garden and Landscape Design and History, and Visual Arts. By virtue of the case study approach in the chapters and the general theoretical framework provided in the introduction, the book also addresses students of all these disciplines.

Re-Evaluations in Feminism and Contemporary Art

Volume 1

Edited by Katy Deepwell

It could be said all new research contains a “re-evaluation” of past work but these two volumes attempt a re-evaluation of feminist research in contemporary art as it has developed over the last 50 years in relation to different local/global dynamics and/or about certain artists, artworks or exhibitions. Feminism(s) aim was to interrogate existing histories and provide significant corrections to what constitutes “history”. The two volumes explore some of the ways feminism(s)’ challenges have changed museums’ curatorial practices, critical writing and art history and how feminism itself has been transformed over time and its presence in many locations. Feminism’s absence from the stories told today about the recent past and present of contemporary art represents a starting point for these essays to explore the different strategies that have been attempted in cultural and political terms and to offer fresh assessments. Their re-evaluation of artists, artworks and exhibitions goes beyond questions of reputation or recognition, to embrace questions about identifying issues in feminist research, engaging in collective work and re-examining the personal in relation to politics/aesthetics. These volumes include different voices and perspectives on feminism and contemporary art from many parts of the world by academics, critics, artists, curators and researchers. Volume 1 has three sections that each address local and transnational issues in interpretations of feminism and amongst exhibiting artists through considering local/global dynamics and/or national frameworks (section 1); feminist cultural politics within exhibitions and writing exhibition histories (section 2) and within histories of conflicts in different local/national situations (section 3). The writers come from North Macedonia, UK, Iran, USA, China, Poland, Austria, The Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Ukraine, Latin America and Latvia – and their work engages work undertaken in Japan, Thailand, France, Vietnam, Mexico, Argentina and Brazil.

Advocating for Art History

Edited by Cindy Persinger, Pennsylvania Western University et al.

At a moment when various uncertainties surround higher education, 'Advocating for Art History' offers theory-informed investigations, case studies, and actionable strategies to empower art historians to assess their individual policy environments and institutional contexts, recognize their spheres of influence, and develop strategic approaches to advocacy that leverage their expertise as educators and researchers. Edited by Jennifer P. Kingsley, Cindy Persinger, and Rosemarie Trentinella, the volume draws on its contributors’ decades of experience across diverse types of public and private institutions—from R-1 universities to liberal arts colleges as well as a medical school and military academy. Chapters share successes and failures, strategies for securing and maintaining institutional support, analysis of art history’s distinctive contributions to skill and professional development as well as of the discipline’s broader value as a social good. Together, the chapters present a nuanced picture of the current moment, in which art history’s perceived vulnerabilities intersect with (and serve) broader narratives about the humanities and higher education’s supposed failures—complexities the book examines and largely counters. Capturing a broad spectrum of contemporary art historical advocacy, 'Advocating for Art History' argues that the discipline’s future depends on art historians actively participating in shaping their institutions’ priorities, making their work visible across a variety of stakeholders both within and beyond the academy, and building collective momentum. Above all, it aims to spark reflection and essential conversations about the discipline’s future, and champions the potential for positive action. It is an essential resource for anyone invested in sustaining the humanities in higher education.

Poetic Inquiry Atlas

Vol 2: A Survey of Ecopoetics

Edited by Lee Beavington, Kwantlen Polytechnic University and Adam Vincent, Capilano University; The University of British Columbia, Canada

This second volume in the 'Poetic Inquiry Atlas' series continues the mapping of the first edition by bringing together a collection that represents some of the diverse uses of ecopoetics across various fields of research and study and explores poetry as a form of environmental geography. With chapters from scholars from diverse ecosystems across the globe, this book highlights both generative and epistemological uses of Poetic Inquiry. Suitable for researchers, educators, poets, ecologists and those who wish to better understand the connection between humans and the world that we live in, this book adds to what is known about Poetic Inquiry, ecology, and about lived experiences in/with nature from both non-Indigenous and Indigenous poets and scholars alike.

Exhalations

A Survey of Olfactory Art

Sandra Barré, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, France

What if art history were written through the nose? 'Exhalations: A Survey of Olfactory Art' is the first comprehensive English-language book to trace a century of olfactory practices in art, from the Futurists’ early experiments with scent to the bacterial installations of Anicka Yi, from Marcel Duchamp’s sealed vial of Parisian air to the ecological interventions of Peter de Cupere. Through the analysis of more than one hundred works, Sandra Barré demonstrates the extent to which smell has shaped modern and contemporary artistic practice, despite its persistent marginalization within criticism and institutions. Neither a medium nor a unified movement, olfactory art spans from Dada, Arte Povera, Fluxus, body art, Land Art, feminist practices, to postcolonial critique. Its concerns are equally wide-ranging: memory, desire, decay, gender, and ecological crisis. In doing so, it unsettles the ocularcentrism that has dominated Western art history since the Enlightenment, the assumption that vision constitutes the primary mode of aesthetic knowledge. Smell operates differently. It enters the body immediately, resisting stable interpretation and singular meaning. Two individuals may encounter the same smell and experience entirely different realities, neither of which can be fully privileged over the other. Drawing on archival research, conversations with artists, and years of curatorial practice, 'Exhalations: A Survey of Olfactory Art' is both a historical survey and a history of encounters. The book advances a compelling and overdue argument: that smell has always been present within artistic practice, that it has always carried meaning, and that attending to it transforms our understanding of art history itself. Originally published in French in 2021 by 'Les Éditions de la Lettre Volée', 'Exhalations: A Survey of Olfactory Art' is translated into English by artist Emilie McDermott.

Psychoanalyzing the Post-Apocalypse

Psychoanalytic Approaches to 21st Century Fiction and Film

Edited by Ercan Gürova, Ankara University, Turkey

‘Psychoanalyzing the Post-Apocalypse: Psychoanalytic Approaches to 21st Century Fiction and Film’ offers an interdisciplinary exploration of contemporary post-apocalyptic literature and cinema through psychoanalytic theory. Bringing together studies of major novels, films, and television series, the volume demonstrates how Freudian, Lacanian, Jungian, and post-Lacanian perspectives illuminate recurring themes such as trauma, desire, mourning, identity, repression, survival, and psychic renewal in worlds shaped by catastrophe. The collection distinguishes itself by applying diverse psychoanalytic frameworks to a broad range of twenty-first-century texts, including "Oryx and Crake," "The Stone Gods," "Station Eleven," "War of the Worlds," "Vesper," "The Road," "The Leftovers," and "2012". Rather than offering generalized discussions of apocalypse, each chapter provides a theoretically grounded analysis of a specific work, revealing how narratives of collapse reflect contemporary anxieties while also imagining new forms of subjectivity, ethical relations, and resilience. Positioned at the intersection of psychoanalytic criticism, literary studies, film studies, and cultural theory, the volume advances current scholarship by foregrounding the psychological dimensions of post-apocalyptic storytelling and demonstrating the versatility of psychoanalytic approaches in interpreting ecological, technological, and existential crises. It contributes an original perspective to the growing body of research on post-apocalyptic fiction by integrating multiple psychoanalytic traditions across diverse media and cultural contexts. The book will serve as a valuable resource for researchers, graduate students, and advanced undergraduates in literature, film, media, psychoanalysis, and cultural studies. It is equally suitable for classroom adoption in courses on contemporary fiction, speculative literature, adaptation, and critical theory, while offering scholars a methodological framework for future interdisciplinary research on apocalypse and the human psyche.