Anthropology / ethnology / social studies

Three multidisciplinary essays—from cultural anthropology to photography analysis—based on visual archives documenting the visit of writer, painter and politician Carlo Levi to an Albanian community in Southern Italy (second volume in the series “Archivi della Basilicata”).

Halfway between a catalogue and a reader, this publication documents a long-term, touring exhibition project on the critical reception of Hubert Fichte's ethnographic travel literature. This large-scale initiative brings forth a multi-faceted debate on colonial modernism, ethnography, poetry and sexuality.

A post-colonial pamphlet on the ethnological museums of Europe, primarily the upcoming Humboldt Forum in Berlin.

In I Swear I Saw This, Michael Taussig highlights the heuristic function of the sketches and drawings made by the ethnographer in his notebooks.

A pioneering approach to the history of emotions.

This publication brings together the work of five anthropologists and five artists/collectives researching and responding to the dramatic rise and fall of Mongolia's mineral economy. Drawing from ongoing fieldwork in Mongolia, the contributors conceptualise crisis as a space for the emergence of new possibilities.

Conceived around an anthropology of the object, this book proposes to follow the course of royal objects of Abomey, former capital of the pre-colonial Kingdom of Dahomey (in present-day Benin).

The development of photography in its first years of existence: an history of the dissemination of photography as a form of documentation and an instrument of discovering and understanding the world and its people, through a wide selection of historic images taken in the Americas, Africa, the Middle East and Asia, between 1842 and 1896.

The development of photography in its first years of existence: an history of the dissemination of photography as a form of documentation and an instrument of discovering and understanding the world and its people, through a wide selection of historic images taken in the Americas, Africa, the Middle East and Asia, between 1842 and 1896.

Jean Dubuffet, Art Brut, and the primitivist paradigm.

The first English translation of Hubert Fichte's investigation on New York's African diaspora in the late 1970s. Contesting the stylistic norms of ethnographic studies, Fichte offers an experimental, poetic, and radical reflection on the living conditions, struggles and cultural heritage of New York Africans.

A reflection on the myth of abundance, at the intersection of philosophy, arts and letters, anthropology, political and natural sciences.

An an extensive analysis of the advent of Christian visual culture in the Kingdom of Kongo and its and development across four centuries.

The itinerary as an artistic, architectural, territorial and social experience.

Based on a set of mostly unpublished archives, this book focuses on the role played by art dealers at the turn of the last century in the definition, promotion and circulation of African objects as artworks, in Europe and the United States.

“Primitivism” as a tool for analysis of post-war French society, between a modernization and decolonization movement, and possible forms of resistance.

This 4th issue of the anthropology journal explores the tension between indeterminacy and narrative in archaeology and art.

Through a series of scientific contributions and archives, this publication recounts the extraordinary character that was Hercule Florence—an explorer, an inventor and an artist, considered one of the inventors of photography.

A landmark study on the psychological effects of oppression on Black Americans during the 1940s.

A reflection on history and the historical document, based on the chronicles of a village written in the 19th century by a Walloon worker.

An ethnological study of witchcraft in West Africa, based on field research conducted in five countries between 1994 and 2000.

Becoming Palm is the outcome of a conversation between two friends, artist Simryn Gill and anthropologist Michael Taussig, addressing the complexities of palm oil and “the enormous transformations, human, and ecological, that this crop engenders” (Taussig) in two disparate geographical locations, Southeast Asia and South America.

This collaborative journey between Brazilian artist Ernesto Neto and members from the Huni Kuin indigenous communities brings to the fore the concept of “ancestral futures” and extends the concerns that have been evident in Neto's oeuvre over the past 20 years: a celebration of the sensuality of being, the unity of bodies and nature, and a longing for spiritual vision.

Through a series of scientific contributions and archives, this publication recounts the extraordinary character that was Hercule Florence—an explorer, an inventor and an artist, considered one of the inventors of photography.

Postmodernism and gift culture: everyday objects in contemporary art since the 1960s.

A story of the Grévin wax museum in Paris from 1881 to 1921.

An essay conceived as an intellectual portrait of the German writer, psychologist and art theorist Karl Philipp Moritz, whose purpose is to investigate the relationships between aesthetics, psychology and anthropology in the second half of the 18th century, and the importance of their simultaneous development for the debates about art after 1800.

Photographic inventory of the rural landscapes of Switzerland and France, combining original photographs and found pictures customized by the artist. An ethnological and sociological approach which culminates in a poetry of the ordinary.

Outside museums, on the roadsides, a journey through the gardens and backyards of Europe and America to discover the "madmen's art": an illustrated essay on the birth and the future of Art Brut (new expanded edition).

An intervened facsimile of a anthropological catalogue listing the items belonging to three collections of Mexican fabrics and weaving patterns constituted during the mid-seventies.

Marxist geographer David Harvey opened his 2016 lecture at Harvard with a fact: between 2011 and 2013 China consumed 50 percent more cement than the United States had in the entire twentieth century. In Abstract from the Concrete, he asks why.

Fully Fueled brings together pictures taken from 2012 to 2014 documenting the life of Emiratis through the lense of cars.

Taking the form of a dialogue between the philosopher Judith Butler and the anthropologist Athena Athanasiou, this thought-provoking book seeks to elaborate our understanding of dispossession outside of the conventional logic of possession, a hallmark of capitalism, liberalism, and humanism.

The political dimension of Visual Studies, between Francophone and Anglo-American studies.

A sourcebook / critical anthology of social art history.

A sourcebook / critical anthology of social art history.

A photographic documentation from a field research on folk athletic contests in male rural Finland in the beginning of the 20th century.

The new impact of corporations on both the state and the market as the new paradigm of neoliberalism.

An encounter between ethnology and literature.

Ambiguity is inherent in images because visual perception is an interpretative act involving memory and imagination. Modern art has made this aspect of perception crucial to its relationship with the viewer. Images potentielles (Potential Images), the first systematic exploration of this topic, considers those works of art that rely to a great degree on imaginative response.

This publication describes the making of a multiple-screen video installation made by Mario Pfeifer while living on Navarino Island, Chile. This anthropological film looks at the life of the descendants of the area's indigenous Yaghan people, and portrays a nation and community that is violently undergoing cultural and religious, social, political and economic transformation.

Proposals for an ecology of diagnosis.

This new monograph gathers 42 images documenting 3 years of photographs taken between 2011 and 2014 during the Purim holiday in the neighbourhood of Stamford Hill, London.

Musician Kamran Sadeghi took field recordings from an anthropological research on Tierra del Fuego as a starting point to compose his digital musical score for a video installation by Mario Pfeifer.

Comprehensive monograph.

A unique multidisciplinary approach to Visual Studies.