Framing the Other: 30 Years After Orientalism

9.30am – 6.30pm, Saturday, 26 April 2008 (with registration from 9.00am)

Kenneth Clark Lecture Theatre, The Courtauld Institute of Art,
Somerset House, Strand, London WC2R 0RN

Organised by: Aliya Abykayeva-Tiesenhausen and Melanie Vandenbrouck

As recent political developments have once again brought to the fore the
question of East/West relationships, the thirtieth anniversary of the
publication of Edward Said’s Orientalism, comes as a suitable
opportunity to re-examine the impact and currency of Said’s key
arguments. This conference will focus on the influence of Said’s legacy
to analyse visual culture as a crucial component of ‘Orientalism’s’ (and
more generally imperialism’s) political self-justification, in the
discursive construction of the ‘Other’. We will hear papers stemming
from the nineteenth century, when imperialism was arguably produced by
the development of racial thinking and the rise of European nationalism,
to the turbulent present period. Addressing the vision of a ‘plural’
West, we wish to take up the issues raised by both obvious and
surprising ‘Others’ with keynote lectures by Mary Roberts (University of
Sydney) and Robert Fisk (The Independent).

PROGRAMME

09.00 - 09.30 Registration

09.30 - 10.00 Introduction

10.00 – 12.00 SESSION 1

10.00 - 10.30 Elizabeth Mjelde (De Anza College, Cupertino) View from
the Pacific Rim: Cultivating a Pedagogy of Disbelief

10.30 - 11.00 Peter Benson Miller (independent art historian and
curator) Local Colour: French Painting and Racial Classification in the
Nineteenth Century

11.00 - 11.30 Roger Blackley (Victoria University of Wellington)
Another Colonial Orientalism: the Case of Charles Goldie

11.30 - 12.00 Evgeny Steiner (Sainsbury Institute, SOAS) A View from
In-Between: Images of the Orient for the Western Audience Seen Through
Russian Eyes

12.00 - 12.30 COFFEE/TEA

12.30 - 13.30 Keynote Lecture
Mary Roberts (University of Sydney) Crossing Boundaries, Testing Limits:
Edward Said and Nineteenth-Century Visual Culture

13.30 - 14.30 BREAK FOR LUNCH

14.30 - 16.30 SESSION 2

14.30 - 15.00 Monia Abdallah (Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences
Sociales) ‘Contemporary Islamic Art’: Inquiry into an Identity
Construction by a Reader of Edward Said

15.00 - 15.30 Ian Horton (London College of Communication)
Colonialist Stereotypes and Narratives in British Comic Books

15.30 - 16.00 Julia Walker (University of Pennsylvania) ‘Tribal
Markings?’: Imagining Russia in the Reichstag Graffiti

16.00 - 16.30 Matthias Weiss (Freie Universität Berlin) Madonna as
Odalisque? Some Remarks on ‘Legend’, a Photograph by Pierre et Gilles

16.30 - 17.00 TEA/COFFEE

17.00 - 18.00 Guest Lecture
Robert Fisk (The Independent)

18.00 - 18.30 Plenary Discussion

18.30 RECEPTION

To book a place: £15 (£10 concessions and Courtauld staff and students).
Please send a cheque made payable to ‘Courtauld Institute of Art’ to:
Research Forum Events Coordinator & Administrator, Courtauld Institute
of Art Research Forum, Somerset House, Strand, London WC2R 0RN, clearly
stating that you wish to book for the ‘Orientalism conference\'. For
credit card bookings call 020 7848 2785/2909. For further information,
send an email to ResearchForumEventscourtauld.ac.uk.