Colonial Modernity
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Recent papers in Colonial Modernity
Thousands of academical works are devoted to the theory of modernization. In general under modernization we can understand the processes where rural, traditional societies are transformed into industrialized and modern. This encompasses... more
This article takes the case of the Vietnamese Cao Dai religion to examine how Asian religious leaders and translators, in a context of colonial modernity, invested a European language with their own cosmologies and discourses, building... more
This study summarizes the impact of the colonial modernity thesis upon the South Korean academy, debates about the colonial past in Korean historiography, and new approaches that seek to overcome the traditional dichotomy of Korean... more
Princely building ventures in post 1857 colonial India included, among others, construction of religious buildings, even as their patrons enthusiastically pursued the colonial modernist agenda. This paper examines the architectural... more
"This essay is based on my analysis of three famous novels written in Malayalam - The Legends of Khasak and The Saga of Dharmapuri by O.V Vijayan, and On the Banks of the Mayyazhi by M. Mukundan. The dreams of a ‘community/society’... more
" The communities represented in fiction are, necessarily, imagined communities; but if a novel is a representation of an imagined community then so, as many recent writers have argued, are our ideas of nationhood. The nation, that is,... more
Employing a poststructuralist-meets-anarchist stance that advances conceptual insight into the nature of sovereign power, this article examines the dialectics of capitalism/primitive accumulation, civilization/savagery, and law/violence,... more
The international exhibitions of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries are now generally seen as sites for the dissemination of an evolving discourse on modernity's primary theme: progress. These technological and cultural... more
This article explores a case of feisty internationalism in India’s Islamic architecture during the colonial era. An Indian ruler with a passion for building, Maharaja Jagatjit Singh (1872-1949), ruler of the princely state of Kapurthala,... more
「身體解放論」(尤其是女性的身體)... more
This article outlines the spread of the Bahá'í religion (known in Chinese as Datong jiao 大同教) in Republican China (1912-1949), as a form of religious cosmopolitanism that originated in Iran, whose spread to China can be traced to links... more
Franks, P.E. (2011) : Culture and Development in the New South Africa. Johannesburg : Ke Art, Read to Think Series. Originally: Franks, P.E (1994) : Culture and development in the new South Africa. Paper commissioned by the United... more
I want to talk about Hobart, the capital of the penal colony of Van Diemen’s Land, (now called Tasmania). In the 1840s new attractions produced wonder and awe in Hobart audiences through optics and staging.
Postcolonial theory has recently come under critique as an interpretative scheme applied to Eastern Europe and particularly Ukraine. However, a closer look suggests that the critique applies only to some aspects of the approach, such as a... more
Australians were "early adopters" of magic lantern technology. From 1830 audiences in the colonial capitals, as well as out in the remote regions, became well acquainted with all aspects of the technology. Magic lanterns were incorporated... more
This article takes the case of the Vietnamese Cao Dai religion to examine how Asian religious leaders and translators, in a context of colonial modernity, invested a European language with their own cosmologies and discourses, building... more
This paper examines the emergence of female third-person pronoun in the linguistic and literary landscapes of colonial Taiwan and Korea. At the turn of twentieth century, the advocacies of vernacular language and free love and marriage in... more
This article coins the term "the ethnographic middlebrow" to take investigate middlebrow non-fiction science writing, and connected issues. Its case study is the interesting, overlooked contributor to early 20th century Canadian writing,... more
The essay couples colonial Indian soap and cigarette advertisements, as both symbolise emergent civilizational values - urbanity, modernity, chivalousness, lifestyle, prestige and the associated class, religion and gender distinctions,... more
A vibrant public sphere has come to be recognised as a necessary condition of modern democracies. Jürgen Habermas’s work has been a convenient point of departure for studies concerned with the concept of the public sphere and modernity,... more
Ottoman modernization from a political and military point of view led to the decline of cultural pluralism and the emergence of political-administrative centralism, and from the social and cultural point of view, educational and... more
This piece is a 'conference report' about ISA 2018 (International Studies Association 59th Annual Convention, San Francisco). The review focuses on two panels on international ethics and decolonial critique organised by Louiza Odysseos... more
This article outlines the spread of the Bahá’í religion—known in Chinese as Datong jiao 大同教)— as a form of religious cosmopolitanism in Republican China (1912–1949). Originating in Iran, its spread to China can be traced to links with the... more
This paper theorizes and historicizes the ideas of modern language and translation and challenges the imperialist and nationalistic mode of worlding with the notion of "untranslatability" that is embedded in the linguistic and cultural... more
Home is where the heart is : Perspectives of migrants and Commuters in South Africa By Peter E. Franks Dean, Faculty of Management Sciences Professor of Industrial and Organisational Psychology University of the North Republic of South... more
This article delves into the history of medical institutions, birthing practices, and reproductive rights in Vieques. The exploration exposes contradictions at the heart of Puerto Rico’s colonial modernity. Around the middle of the... more
Franks, P.E. (2006) Managing in a rural context: Notes from the frontier. In H. van den Heuvel, M. Mangaliso and L van Bunt (Eds.) Prophecies and Protests. Ubuntu in Glocal Management. Amsterdam and Pretoria, Rozenberg and UNISA.
https://affect-and-colonialism.net/podcast/revenge-in-colonial-modernity/ It is seen as one of the great achievements of European modernity to have cast out revenge from law and politics. The colonial narrative says: where revenge... more
Taking a photograph from the 1906 Australian tour of William Holman Hunt’s painting The Light of the World as my starting point, I explore the special relationship colonial audiences had with magic lantern shows and related... more
This paper theorizes and historicizes the ideas of modern language and translation and challenges the imperialist and nationalistic mode of worlding with the notion of ‘untranslatability’ that is embedded in the linguistic and cultural... more
This article takes the case of the Vietnamese Cao Dai religion to examine how Asian religious leaders and translators, in a context of colonial modernity, invested a European language with their own cosmologies and discourses, building... more
This essay argues that literature as a conceptual category is not timeless or universal. In the case of Iran and Afghanistan, the formation of literature, or adabiyat, was the outcome of early twentieth-century associational culture that... more