Pictorial Cultures and Political Iconographies

Approaches, Perspectives, Case Studies from Europe and America

Udo J. Hebel, Christoph Wagner, Udo J. Hebel, Christoph Wagner

• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9783110237856
• eBook ISBN: 9783110237863
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Art General
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The pictorial turn in the humanities and social sciences has foregrounded the political power of images and the extent to which historical, political, social, and cultural processes and practices are shaped visually. Political iconographies are taken to interpret norms of actions, support ideological formations, and enhance moral concepts. Visual rhetorics are understood as active players in the construction and contestation of the political realm and public space. The twenty-one articles by scholars from Europe and the United States explore the political function and cultural impact of images from the perspectives of Art History, American Studies, Visual Culture Studies, History, and Political Science. The contributions in particular address the complex interplay between agent and addressee in the public space as well as issues of national identity, discourses of inclusion and exclusion, and the designation of political spaces within transnational contexts. The publication is part of the interdisciplinary research initiative "Perceiving and Understanding: Functions, Perception Processes, Forms of Visualizations, Cultural Strategies of Pictures and Texts" at the University of Regensburg.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Introduction
• Why Is There No Political Science of the Arts?
• Rubens’s Pictorial Peacekeeping Force: Negotiating through ‘Visual Speech-Acts
• Political Iconography and the Picture Act: The Execution of Charles I in 1649
• “The Conqueror of Canada” – Benjamin West and the Heroes of Sentimentalism
• Nationalism and Truth in Grant Wood’s
• Masculinity, Sexuality, and the German Nation: The Eulenburg Scandals and Kaiser Wilhelm II in Political Cartoons
• Bauhaus, the Radio, and the Colors of Fascism
• Adolf Hitler’s (Self-)Fashioning as a Genius: The Visual Politics of National Socialism’s Cult of Genius
• The Grammar of Postrevolutionary Visual Politics: Comparing Presidential Stances of George Washington and Friedrich Ebert
• Making the Invisible Visible: The Public Persona of Malcolm X
• The New Face of American Anger: Internet Imagery and the Power of Contagious Feeling
• Photographing American Indians: An Imaginary Exhibition
• The “Other” Country in the City: Urban Space and the Politics of Visibility in American Social Documentary Photography
• Taming the Teeming Masses: Visualizing Order at Ellis Island
• Replacing the President: Cecil Stoughton’s “Lyndon B. Johnson Taking the Oath of Office" and the Iconography of U.S. American Presidential Inaugurations
• Souvenirs from the Landscapes of Modernity: Richard Misrach, Camilo Vergara, and the Visual Politics of Ruin
• The Trouble with Atrocity Photography in Gerhard Richter, Robert Morris and Alfredo Jaar, or, Art on the Brink of Failure
• Must-See Sights: The Politics of Representing U.S.-American History
• Body, Building, City, and Environment: Iconography in the Mexican Megalopolis
• Aesthetics and Political Iconography of Money
• Notes on Contributors
• Index