View author and book videos on our YouTube channel.
“Duke University Press has done social visionaries a real service by printing Martin Jay and Sumathi Ramaswamy’s massive collection of insightful articles unveiling how the very way we see the world is daily shaped by ‘pictorial practices, image-making technologies, and vision-oriented subjectivities’ that have been ‘entangled in empire-building, nationalist reactions, post colonial contestations, and transnational globalization.’ It is not just economic or military power that shapes the way we see the world, but also photographs, paintings, maps, and the whole range of visual arts and media that are scrutinized in this collection.” — Tikkun
“The power of Empires of Vision is in its trans-disciplinary scope, but is also in its ambition. The themes and essays come together and prod the reader to consider the multi-dimensionality of image and empire. It moves beyond mere collections and museums; it moves beyond observed and observer. Empires of Vision examines the nature of empire through oft-forgotten and frequently overlooked historical characters.” — Lydia Pyne, Somatosphere
"An essential contribution to an ever-expanding field of investigation as much as it is fascinating reading." — Sandra Marques, Social Anthropology
"These essays, combined with masterily introductions by the editors... offer an exceptional initiation into thinking through the visual turn vis-a-vis modern European imperialism." — Carmen Nielson, Social History
"...enlightening, thought-provoking, and absorbing." — Dennis Reinhartz, Terrae Incognitae
"The volume...comprises a sound and valuable anthology of established research on visual culture, Empire, and the postcolony. As most of these contributions have become or are on the way to becoming canonical works, Empires of Vision is exactly that — 'a reader.' As such, it is a valuable contribution to the field, and a useful text for those teaching undergraduate and graduate courses on visual culture, imperialism, and postcolonialism." — Stephen Sheehi, Canadian Journal of History
“Duke University Press has done social visionaries a real service by printing Martin Jay and Sumathi Ramaswamy’s massive collection of insightful articles unveiling how the very way we see the world is daily shaped by ‘pictorial practices, image-making technologies, and vision-oriented subjectivities’ that have been ‘entangled in empire-building, nationalist reactions, post colonial contestations, and transnational globalization.’ It is not just economic or military power that shapes the way we see the world, but also photographs, paintings, maps, and the whole range of visual arts and media that are scrutinized in this collection.” —Tikkun
“The power of Empires of Vision is in its trans-disciplinary scope, but is also in its ambition. The themes and essays come together and prod the reader to consider the multi-dimensionality of image and empire. It moves beyond mere collections and museums; it moves beyond observed and observer. Empires of Vision examines the nature of empire through oft-forgotten and frequently overlooked historical characters.” —Lydia Pyne, Somatosphere
"An essential contribution to an ever-expanding field of investigation as much as it is fascinating reading." —Sandra Marques, Social Anthropology
"These essays, combined with masterily introductions by the editors... offer an exceptional initiation into thinking through the visual turn vis-a-vis modern European imperialism." —Carmen Nielson, Social History
"...enlightening, thought-provoking, and absorbing." —Dennis Reinhartz, Terrae Incognitae
"The volume...comprises a sound and valuable anthology of established research on visual culture, Empire, and the postcolony. As most of these contributions have become or are on the way to becoming canonical works, Empires of Vision is exactly that — 'a reader.' As such, it is a valuable contribution to the field, and a useful text for those teaching undergraduate and graduate courses on visual culture, imperialism, and postcolonialism." —Stephen Sheehi, Canadian Journal of History
"Empires of Vision is one of those books that had to be written, and that required, not a single author but an interdisciplinary and cosmopolitan collective of scholarly learning and critical passion. In a brilliant series of interventions, the authors gathered here survey the full range of ways in which imperialism worked its black magic, not just with the standard tools of armies and military technologies, bureaucracies and gunboats, but with photographs, paintings, maps, and the whole range of visual arts and media. This is essential reading for art historians, anthropologists, and scholars of visual culture across the globe." — W. J. T. Mitchell, author of, Seeing Through Race
"The culture of empire has been assessed and analyzed most frequently on the evidence of its "writings." It is the inscriptive archives of law, literature, anthropology, history, theology, amongst others, that have dominated our view of the representational conditions and ideological commitments that prevail in colonial societies. But empire was a potent apparatus for looking, viewing, and gazing—an act of surveillance, an art of regulation, and a profound shaper of visual culture. No collaboration could be as fruitful as the shared spirits of Martin Jay and Sumathi Ramaswamy, who serve as our gifted cicerones in the world of empire's seeing. They have gathered together some of the most important essays that explore the visual domain of empire's rule and misrule, and their anthology will have a transformative effect on art history, the history of ideas, and postcolonial studies."— — Homi K. Bhabha, Anne F. Rothenberg Professor of the Humanities, Harvard University
If you are requesting permission to photocopy material for classroom use, please contact the Copyright Clearance Center at copyright.com;
If the Copyright Clearance Center cannot grant permission, you may request permission from our Copyrights & Permissions Manager (use Contact Information listed below).
If you are requesting permission to reprint DUP material (journal or book selection) in another book or in any other format, contact our Copyrights & Permissions Manager (use Contact Information listed below).
Many images/art used in material copyrighted by Duke University Press are controlled, not by the Press, but by the owner of the image. Please check the credit line adjacent to the illustration, as well as the front and back matter of the book for a list of credits. You must obtain permission directly from the owner of the image. Occasionally, Duke University Press controls the rights to maps or other drawings. Please direct permission requests for these images to permissions@dukeupress.edu.
For book covers to accompany reviews, please contact the publicity department.
If you're interested in a Duke University Press book for subsidiary rights/translations, please contact permissions@dukeupress.edu. Include the book title/author, rights sought, and estimated print run.
Instructions for requesting an electronic text on behalf of a student with disabilities are available here.
Contributors. Jordanna Bailkin, Roger Benjamin, Daniela Bleichmar, Zeynep Çelik, David Ciarlo, Natasha Eaton, Simon Gikandi, Serge Gruzinski, James L. Hevia, Martin Jay, Brian Larkin, Olu Oguibe, Ricardo Padrón, Christopher Pinney, Sumathi Ramaswamy, Benjamin Schmidt, Terry Smith, Robert Stam, Eric A. Stein, Nicholas Thomas, Krista A. Thompson
Martin Jay is Sidney Hellman Ehrman Professor of History at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of many books, including Downcast Eyes, The Dialectical Imagination, and Marxism and Totality.
Sumathi Ramaswamy is Professor of History at Duke University. She is the author of The Goddess and the Nation, also published by Duke University Press; The Lost Land of Lemuria, and Passions of the Tongue.
Sign up for Subject Matters email updates to receive discounts, new book announcements, and more.