Asian Self-Representation at World's Fairs

Asian Self-Representation at World's Fairs
Author: William Peterson
Publisher: Amsterdam University Press
Total Pages: 319
Release: 2020-08-06
Genre: Art
ISBN: 9048536782

International expositions or "world's fairs" are the largest and most important stage on which millions routinely gather to directly experience, express, and respond to cultural difference. Rather than looking at Asian representation at the hands of colonizing powers, something already much examined, this book instead focuses on expressions of an empowered Asian self-representation at world's fairs in the West after the so-called golden age of the exhibition. New modes of representation became possible as the older "exhibitionary order" of earlier fairs gave way to a dominant "performative order," one increasingly preoccupied with generating experience and affect. Using case studies of national representation at selected fairs over the hundred-year period from 1915-2015, this book considers both the politics of representation as well as what happens within the imaginative worlds of Asian country pavilions, where the performative has become the dominant mode for imprinting directly on human bodies.

In Search of Admiration and Respect

In Search of Admiration and Respect
Author: Yanqiu Zheng
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Total Pages: 268
Release: 2024-09-23
Genre: History
ISBN: 0472904477

In Search of Admiration and Respect examines the institutionalization of Chinese cultural diplomacy in the period between high imperialism and the international ascendance of the People's Republic of China. During these years, Chinese intellectuals and officials tried to promote the idea of China's cultural refinement in an effort to combat negative perceptions of the nation. Yanqiu Zheng argues that, unlike similar projects by more established powers, Chinese cultural diplomacy in this era was not carried out solely by a functional government agency; rather, limited resources forced an uneasy collaboration between the New York-based China Institute and the Chinese Nationalist government. In Search of Admiration and Respect uses the Chinese case to underscore what Zheng calls "infrastructure of persuasion," in which American philanthropy, museums, exhibitions, and show business had disproportionate power in setting the agenda of unequal intercultural encounters. This volume also provides historical insights into China's ongoing quest for international recognition. Drawing upon diverse archival sources, Zheng expands the contours of cultural diplomacy beyond established powers and sheds light on the limited agency of peripheral nations in their self-representation.

In Sight of America

In Sight of America
Author: Dr. Anna Pegler-Gordon
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 340
Release: 2023-04-28
Genre: History
ISBN: 0520944631

When restrictive immigration laws were introduced in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, they involved new requirements for photographing and documenting immigrants--regulations for visually inspecting race and health. This work is the first to take a comprehensive look at the history of immigration policy in the United States through the prism of visual culture. Including many previously unpublished images, and taking a new look at Lewis Hine's photographs, Anna Pegler-Gordon considers the role and uses of visual documentation at Angel Island for Chinese immigrants, at Ellis Island for European immigrants, and on the U.S.-Mexico border. Including fascinating close visual analysis and detailed histories of immigrants in addition to the perspectives of officials, this richly illustrated book traces how visual regulations became central in the early development of U.S. immigration policy and in the introduction of racial immigration restrictions. In so doing, it provides the historical context for understanding more recent developments in immigration policy and, at the same time, sheds new light on the cultural history of American photography.

Cultural Production in Virtual and Imagined Worlds

Cultural Production in Virtual and Imagined Worlds
Author: Tracey Bowen
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 220
Release: 2009-12-14
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1443818364

Cultural Production in Virtual and Imagined Worlds foregrounds how the two important fields of visual culture and Internet culture interact. This collection of essays explores the intersections, overlaps and disparities in terms of how the two discourses illuminate our everyday negotiations as we become increasingly dependent on the Internet and virtual/visual imaginings for constructing who we are. What is being examined here are the ways in which we use visual/virtual lenses to see the world both individually and collectively. This book represents a transnational effort that began as a series of conversations during the Mid Atlantic Popular/American Culture conferences from 2005–2009. The editors, a Canadian and an American, have included contributors across national and geographic contexts. Cultural Production is aimed at raising questions, crossing borders and presenting points of departure for future scholarship in the relatively new and very rapidly changing disciplines of visual and virtual cultures. Our critical approach to this study includes viewing Internet images as contested sites of cultural activity and also as sites that advance ideologies related to cultural transformation.

Beyond Representation

Beyond Representation
Author: Wen Fong
Publisher: Metropolitan Museum of Art
Total Pages: 571
Release: 1992
Genre: Calligraphy, Chinese
ISBN: 0300057016

Beyond Representation surveys Chinese painting and calligraphy from the eighth to the fourteenth century, a period during which Chinese society and artistic expression underwent profound changes. A fourteenth-century Yuan dynasty (1279 - 1368) literati landscape painting presents a world that is totally different from that portrayed in the monumental landscape images of the early Sung dynasty (960 - 1279). To chronicle and explain the evolution from formal representation to self-expression is the purpose of this book. Wen C. Fong, one of the world's most eminent scholars of Chinese art, takes the reader through this evolution, drawing on the outstanding collection of Chinese painting and calligraphy in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Focusing on 118 works, each illustrated in full color, the book significantly augments the standard canon of images used to describe the period, enhancing our sense of the richness and complexity of artistic expression during this six-hundred-year era.

Heiress Apparently (Daughters of the Dynasty)

Heiress Apparently (Daughters of the Dynasty)
Author: Diana Ma
Publisher: Abrams
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2020-12-01
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
ISBN: 1647000874

The epic first novel in a sweeping series following the romantic lives and intrigues of the fictionalized descendants of a Chinese empress—now in paperback! Behind every great family lies a great secret. There’s one rule in Gemma Huang’s family: Never, under any circumstances, set foot in Beijing. But when Gemma, an aspiring actress, lands her first break—a lead role in an update of M. Butterfly, which just so happens to be filming in the Chinese capital—Gemma heads to LAX without looking back. It’s an amazing opportunity for her burgeoning career, and she’ll get to work with her idol. Of course, there’s also the chance of discovering just exactly why she’s been forbidden from entering the city in the first place. When Gemma arrives in Beijing, she’s instantly mobbed by paparazzi at the airport. She quickly realizes she may as well be the twin of Alyssa Chua, one of the most notorious young socialites in Beijing. Thus kicks off a season of revelations and romance in which Gemma uncovers a legacy her parents have spent their lives protecting her from—one her mother would conceal at any cost.

Asian North American Identities

Asian North American Identities
Author: Eleanor Ty
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 230
Release: 2004-04-29
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780253110916

The nine essays in Asian North American Identities explore how Asian North Americans are no longer caught between worlds of the old and the new, the east and the west, and the south and the north. Moving beyond national and diasporic models of ethnic identity to focus on the individual feelings and experiences of those who are not part of a dominant white majority, the essays collected here draw from a wide range of sources, including novels, art, photography, poetry, cinema, theatre, and popular culture. The book illustrates how Asian North Americans are developing new ways of seeing and thinking about themselves by eluding imposed identities and creating spaces that offer alternative sites from which to speak and imagine. Contributors are Jeanne Yu-Mei Chiu, Patricia Chu, Rocio G. Davis, Donald C. Goellnicht, Karlyn Koh, Josephine Lee, Leilani Nishime, Caroline Rody, Jeffrey J. Santa Ana, Malini Johar Schueller, and Eleanor Ty.

Borrowed Sceneries

Borrowed Sceneries
Author: Rahel Hartmann Schweizer
Publisher: Birkhäuser
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2024-04-22
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 3035626480

Der Garten als Inspiration Der Garten verkörpert verdichtete Natur, so wie sich nach japanischem Verständnis in einem Tautropfen die Welt widerspiegelt. Diese Vorstellung kann als Impuls für die Imitationen japanischer Gärten in der Schweiz im 20. Jahrhundert gesehen werden, als Anstoß für die Einbindung japanischer Elemente und als Stoffumwandler vom Alpinum zur Trockenlandschaft. Die Autorin illustriert erstmals anhand von zehn Schweizer Landschaftsarchitekturbüros wie diese sich von miniaturisierten Gärten (Bonsai) inspirieren ließen, sich Szenerien (Shakkei) liehen, dem Reiz des Unvollkommenen (Wabi-sabi) erlagen und den Geist von Zen einfingen. Sie beleuchtet Parallelen zur Anverwandlung chinesischer Einflüsse in Japan und verortet das Phänomen in der Rezeption Nippons im Westen. Hochattraktives und viel bisher unveröffentlichtes Bildmaterial Fundiert recherchiertes Material verständlich und ansprechend aufbereitet Japan-Begeisterung in der Schweizer Landschaftsarchitektur Mit einem Fotoessay von Martin Linsi

A History of Russian Exposition and Festival Architecture

A History of Russian Exposition and Festival Architecture
Author: Alla Aronova
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 325
Release: 2018-10-03
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 1315461838

This collection of thirteen vignettes addresses several important episodes in the history of Russian temporary architecture and public art, from the royal festivals during the times of Peter the Great up to the recent venues including the Sochi Winter Olympics. The forms and the circumstances of their design were drastically different; however, the projects discussed in the book share a common feature: they have been instrumental in the construction of Russia’s national identity, with its perception of the West - simultaneously, a foe and a paragon - looming high over this process. The book offers a history of multidirectional relationships between diplomacy, propaganda, and architecture.