Though the class is over, I thought I’d post a couple more links that I ran across yesterday. All Things Considered on NPR conducted an interview with Tariq Ramadan after the US State Department lifted his ban on travel earlier this year. In it, he discusses his views on Islam in relation to US and European policy and politics. He makes many references to the current veil issues in France and, interestingly, makes a pointed argument that the veil argument is but a cover-up by right-wing French politicians to mask the still ongoing issues in the banlieues.
Also, I posted a link to a short article from the New York Times on Shanghai’s World Expo. Similar to the colonial expo of France (minus the colonial part), China is putting on a multinational show that is projected to be bigger than the olympics for the country.
NPR Link
NYT Link
Il est intéressant qu’il y ait un parallèle entre l’Orientalisme et la célébration du colonialisme en France, surtout dans l’Exposition du Colonialisme International du Paris dans 1931. Dans les mots de Lebovics, « the exposition played upon the usual rampant exoticism and the inevitable Orientalism” (Lebovics 54).
L’idéalisation de la culture coloniale et “the voyeuristic appropriation of women in the tropics,” comme vu dans les peintures de Gauguin, fonctionné à représenter des cultures exotiques et pourvoir à la publique général française.
Dans cette peinture, il semble qu’il y ait des traces du Delacroix…êtes vous d’accord ?
Due donne a Tahiti, Paul Gauguin
I came across this interesting flickr feed of photos taken by Dutch tourists at the 1931 Colonial Exhibition, which we are reading about this week in the excerpts from Herman Lebovic’s book True France: The Wars of Cultural Identity. They give a nice sense of what visitors to the event would have seen, and recorded.
Can you locate other interesting photos or videos from the event?
Empire and Its Contemporary Legacies
