Slavery in Art and Literature (PDF)

Slavery, both in its historical and modern forms, continues to be a matter of undiminished political and social relevance. This is mirrored by an increasing interest in scholarly research as well as by critical statements from within the field of contemporary art. The present volume is designed to bring together artists and scholars from various fields of study discussing trauma and visuality, or more precisely, memory and denial of traumatic history within visual discourses. The purpose of this project is to put the phenomenon of contemporary art production dealing with the issue of slavery into a wider, interdisciplinary and transcultural context. The book covers current case studies focusing on different media and including visual, literary and performative approaches of dealing with the history of slavery in West-African, American and European cultures.

Birgit Haehnel (Ph.D., University of Trier, 2004) lives as an independent scholar of art history in Vienna. She is the author of 'Regelwerk und Umgestaltung. Der Nomadismusdiskurs in der Kunst nach 1945' (2007). She has published extensively on contemporary art and on art of the 17th, 19th and 20th centuries with a special focus on gender and post-colonialism. Melanie Ulz (Ph.D., University of Trier, 2005) is an art historian and lives in Berlin. She is the author of 'Auf dem Schlachtfeld des Empire. Männlichkeitskonzepte in der Bildproduktion zu Napoleons Ägyptenfeldzug' (Marburg, 2008). She has published on art and visual culture of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries with a focus on gender and postcolonial theory.