Posts by tag
Colonialism
8 posts
‘Where There is No Architect’: Histories from the Native Town of Bombay
Bombay’s history is woven around tales of cosmopolitanism. But while the grandiose architecture of the colonial city gets all the attention, the vernacular architecture built by the cosmopolitanism from below in the so-called “Native Town” nearby is too often overlooked.
Persian Rugs and the Aesthetics of Whiteness in Apartheid-Era South Africa
It is a fascinating accident of history that “Persian carpets” became a part, albeit a small one, of South African whiteness.
Weaving History: Ziegler Co. and the Making of Iran’s Carpet Industry
Carpet manufacturing during the Qajar period was dominated by the establishment of multinational corporations who invested heavily in the production of Persian carpets. The management method used by these companies inside developing countries was based on exploitation. These companies encouraged the carpet manufactures to weave inexpensive carpets of low quality and cheap coloration due to the use of chemically-unstable ink colors, which were suitable for European and American markets. These corporations encouraged economic profitability over quality.
Auctioning History: Ancient Artefacts, Greco-Persian Labels and Mediterranean Identities Beyond ‘East’ and ‘West’
Perceptions of historical identities and present identities have always gone hand-in-hand on the basis of heritage and descent. Artefacts that remain from these histories are not only remnants of past events and peoples, but also raw materials for potentially new projects of nation-building and identity formation, depending on how they are interpreted.
Internalized Colonial Narratives in Pakistani Cinema: Liberalism, “Good Muslims,” and the War on Terror
As a cultural production with a decidedly liberal agenda, Khuda Ke Liye’s failure to challenge the conflation of Islamic religious conservatism with misogyny and anti-Americanism, and the converse equation of liberalism with feminism and pacifism vis-à-vis the U.S., highlights an internalization of the War on Terror narrative among many Pakistani liberals.
Patriarchy & Islamism between Tehran and Cairo
The newest viral sensation in the Egyptian blogosphere is a video purporting to be a message from the “Women of Iran” directed towards the “Women of Egypt and Tunisia,” exhorting…