Towards a molecular agenda for the Left

In his talk, communications scholar and cultural critic Alejandro Kaufman analyses some of the contradictions in which the Latin American progressive projects became entangled in a context dominated by the ‘happy totalitarianism’ of consumption and the spectacle as a seemingly irreducible contemporary order of being on a global scale. The great challenge for the Left, he suggests, is to move away from a representationalist paradigm of the struggle for power and towards a politics of molecular interventions on the level of lived experience.     

Heritage spectacles: the case of Amphipolis excavations during the Greek economic crisis

This article explores the ways in which the archaeological excavations at Amphipolis, Northern Greece, were transformed into a ‘heritage spectacle’ during the summer of 2014. The article argues that the spectacularisation of Amphipolis excavations constituted a powerful, political medium for dis-orientating the wider Greek public from issues related to the severe economic crisis of the country. Although the practice of heritage spectacularisation is not new, the media spectacle of Amphipolis introduced an advanced mechanism for spectacularizing archaeological research and the past. The article deconstructs this mechanism through a thematic content analysis of about 100 newspaper articles published in the Greek press, filtered through the lenses of spectacle theory. As it is demonstrated, the spectacularisation process of Amphipolis excavations is embodied by emotive dramatisation, banal cultural symbols, escapism and power imbalances. The article concludes with an interpretive framework for heritage spectacles while highlighting ethical and practical implications regarding the role of archaeologists and heritage practitioners towards political ‘abuse’ of heritage in times of socio-economic and political crises.     

The violence of spectacle: Statist schemes to green the desert and constructing Astana and Ashgabat as urban oases

Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan have been home to the most impressive urban development projects in the entire post-Soviet world. Their capitals, Astana and Ashgabat, now boast uniquely monumental architecture and local leaders have invested heavily in ‘green belt’ projects to surround the cities with lush vegetation, as well as developing green and water-laden public spaces. In doing so, elites have drawn on Soviet-era ‘garden city’ idealism, as well as more recent environmental sustainability narratives. Yet these schemes are anything but sustainable. Unfolding on the arid Central Asian steppe, they depend on heavy irrigation, with water diverted from rivers that already fail to meet regional demands. Employing a comparative approach, I ask why and with what effect state planners have sought to craft Astana and Ashgabat as spectacularly green ‘urban oases,’ when their local climates should defy the logic of sustainability. In so doing, I consider urban greening in the two countries as part of a wider phenomenon of statist schemes to green the desert, which have a long and diverse history. Extending the literature on desert greening, I argue that the structural violence they manifest and perpetuate is best understood by attending to how they operate as a form of spectacle.     

Anthropology,Festival, and Spectacle

This article weaves together analyses of three recent books which, despite their being compiled primarily by scholars outside of the discipline of anthropology, make theoretical and methodological contributions useful to the anthropology of festivals and ritual, both religious and secular. These works demonstrate that spectacle has been ritualized into festive practices of modernity and identity in multiple places, times, and cultural contexts. Greater attention to how this works from a general anthropological perspective is needed.     

Architectural rumors: unrealized megaprojects in Baku,Azerbaijan and their politico-economic uses

This article examines the agency of unrealized megaprojects in bolstering economic activity, legitimizing political regimes, and expanding designer’s portfolios. It argues that such proposals serve as a form of “Architectural Rumor,” providing politico-economic agency despite ultimate project infeasibility. Specifically, it looks at two case studies of proposed yet unrealized island megaprojects in the city of Baku, Azerbaijan: the 2009 Zira Island Master Plan and the 2010 Khazar Islands Plan. Spectacular urban design and architecture have long served as catalysts for development, investment attraction, and real estate speculation. As cities compete with one another to lure capital and boost their global status, many design proposals have become increasingly expensive, ostentatious, and technologically sophisticated. The high-risk financial nature of grand urban design proposals and their frequent associations with displacement or environmental destruction suggests that the megaproject model is becoming flawed. At the same time, there remain advantages for clients and politicians to proposing designs that are more spectacular than feasible. Using a mixed-methods approach, four key arenas in which unrealized proposals circulate are described. The various benefits and detriments of such an approach to architectural commodification are also discussed, foregrounding the broader societal costs.     

Sensuous Solidarities: Emotion,Politics and Performance in the Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army

Abstract: This paper is concerned with the political performance of the Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army (CIRCA) during the protests against the G8 meeting in Gleneagles, Scotland in 2005. In particular, the paper is concerned with how emotional experiences within political moments or events can be constituted through performances that fashion “sensuous solidarities”. Sensuous solidarities are generated through diverse bodily movements and techniques, and are indicative of both the performative character of activist subjectivities and the content of activists’ public (political) performances. Reflecting on my participation in CIRCA, this paper will argue that sensuous solidarities constituted a series of complex, contradictory and emotive co‐performances and resonances with police, other protestors and the public and in doing so will consider the efficacy of those forms of activism that Duncombe (2007, Dream: Reimagining Progressive Politics in an Age of Fantasy. London: The New Press) has termed “ethical spectacles”.     

Hail ambiguous St Patrick: sounds of Ireland on parade in Birmingham

Birmingham's St Patrick's Day parade claims to be the largest of such events in the UK and the third best attended in the world. Despite resorting to universal advertising proclamations that for one day ‘everyone is a little bit Irish’, this annual march continues to foster the unique musical character of the local diaspora; a metanarrative for the wider, fractious journey of the Irish community into the West Midlands over the past sixty years. This paper examines the primary event in Birmingham's calendar by way of the sounds of the spectacle, considering the musical display that is presented in the processional mode to a static audience sharing city-centre streets one Sunday morning every March. By engaging with the theories on performance of Domenico Pietropaolo, Mikhail Bakhtin and Stephen Greenblatt, this paper argues that it is in the audible space of the parade that Birmingham creates Breda Gray's Ireland ‘of global flows’.     

The disjunction of image and word in US and Chinese soft power projection

This article compares US and Chinese national soft power strategies, using the cases of the US Shared Values Initiative for the Middle East in the aftermath of 9–11 and the present operation of Chinese Confucius Institutes in the US. Comparing these two national programs, I describe a consistent disjunction between visual image and spoken word for each. Regardless of variations in national approaches to soft power, this disconnect between seeing and talking is a limitation of soft power as a cultural tool of diplomatic communication. First, public diplomats’ unexamined folk theories about culture’s instrumental role in messaging emphasize spectacle in ways inimical to reciprocal engagement. Second, as a cultural policy of display, soft power image projection discourages opportunities for inter-cultural dialogue. Third, government-sponsored national image management and branding are often controversial elsewhere, in the process touching off boundary-patrolling public debates instead of helping to build international relationships.     

‘Imago Mundi’ bibliography (of literature,mainly published in 1974–1975.)

Lexicon zur Geschichte der Kartographie von den Anfängen bis zum ersten Weltkrieg edited by Ingrid Kretschmer, Johannes Dörflinger and Franz Wawrik with the editorial assistance of Elisabeth Tomasi. Die Kartographie und ihre Randgebiete: Enzyklopädie, Vol. C/1 &; 2. Vienna: Franz Deuticke, 1986. Pp. xxiv + 988. ÖS.3000.00.

Cartography in France 1660–1848: Science, engineering, and statecraft by Josef W. Konvitz. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1987. 0 226 45094 5. Pp. xx + 194, illustrations. $31.95.

De Physique Existentie dezes Landes. Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum, 1987. Pp. 271. Hfl.39.00.

Z Dejin Geodezie a Kartografie 5. Rozpravy Národního Technického Muzea v Praze 107. Prague: Národní Technické Museum, 1986. Pp. 222.

Catalogue of the MRIO‐Miscellaneous Maps of the Survey of India (1742–1872). New Delhi: National Archives of India, 1982. Pp. viii + 366.

Catalogue of Forest Maps of the Survey of India. New Delhi: National Archives of India, 1984. Pp. viii + 174. Rs.28.00.

National Archives of India. Catalogue of Printed &; Published Maps. New Delhi, 1986. 2 volumes: pp. iv + 446; 322. Rs. 145.00.     

An American Prototype in Thomas Mann's Königliche Hoheit

This study is inspired by Henri Lefebvre's theories on the production of space to consider the issues of geographic scale, urbanism, and historical memory in Spanish playwright Jerónimo López Mozo's 1999 play El arquitecto y el relojero. In this drama, the discourses of scale and the spectacle of urban space permeate the dialogue and staging of the work while the characters confront contemporary anxieties about the spatial component of historical memory. Relying on Henri Lefebvre's tripartite theory of the production of space to explore this spatial component not only illustrates the important relationship between culture and space, but it also demonstrates how the production of space at one scale—the urban—simultaneously “articulates” (Delaney and Leitner) with the broader geography of the nation.