Mark Auslander
Biographic Data
| ID | 90974 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Mark Auslander |
| GIVEN NAMES | Mark |
| FAMILY NAME | Auslander |
| SIGNATURE | AUSLANDER M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Central Washington University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 23 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 16 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 22 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2001 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Heroes: Principles of African Greatness by Kevin D. Dumouchelle
Conceived of in conjunction with the exhibition (2019-2022) of the same name at the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, curator Kevin D. Dumouchelle's handsome book Heroes: Principles of African Greatness, is a significant stand-alone contribution to the popular study of African art (see Bourland 2021). This dynamic large-format volume reads diverse objects in NMAfA's collection through the concept of the heroic, sensitive to the tragic a…
Before Nollywood: The Ideal Photo Studio curated by Amy Staples. Iké Udé: Nollywood Portraits Originating curator: Selene Wendt; Smithsonian curator: Karen Milbourne
Two photographic exhibitions at the National Museum of Africa Art offered profoundly different approaches to modern Nigerian visual culture. Iké Udé: Nollywood Portraits, a traveling exhibition, celebrated the Nigerian film industry from a transnational elite perspective. In contrast, Before Nollywood: The Ideal Photo Studio explored the popular studio photography of Solomon Osagie Alonge during the late colonial and early national era, documenti…
Vehicles: Cars, Canoes, and Other Metaphors of Moral Imagination
Metaphor, as an act of human fancy, combines ideas in improbable ways to sharpen meanings of life and experience. Theoretically, this arises from an association between a sign-for example, a cattle car-and its referent, the Holocaust. These "sign-vehicles" serve as modes of semiotic transportation through conceptual space. Likewise, on-the-ground vehicles can be rich metaphors for the moral imagination. Following on this insight, Vehicles present…
Along the Ulcofauhatche: "Of Sorrow Songs and "Dried Indian Creek
Mark Auslander and Avis E. Williams recount the contested circumstances surrounding the naming of "Dried Indian Creek" in Newton County, Georgia and explore the lingering racial and institutional implications of this geographic history
Dwelling on my Falling: Yukiyo Kawano's Nuclear Vision
In August 2021, Yukiyo Kawano, a third generation Hiroshima hibakusha, was refused permission to install her sculptural evocation of the Nagasaki bombing, at the first commemoration of the atomic bombings within the National Park Service's Manhattan Project National Historical Park at Hanford, Washington, where plutonium for the "Fat Man" device was produced. The artist nonetheless raised the piece near the restricted Hanford zone. We consider th…
In Search of Lost Futures: Anthropological Explorations in Multimodality, Deep Interdisciplinarity, and Autoethnography
In Search of Lost Futures: Anthropological Explorations in Multimodality, Deep Interdisciplinarity, and Autoethnography
Introduction: In Search of Lost Futures
Where Shall We Place Our Hope?”: Covid-19 and the Imperiled National Body in South Africa's “Lockdown Collection”
all artwork shared courtesy of the artists and The Lockdown CollectionDuring April 2020, for the first twenty-one days of what South Africans term “the Lockdown” (elsewhere in the world referenced as “shelter in place” or quarantine), prominent South African artists were invited to create or share work that spoke to COVID-19 and its unfolding crises. A second series was organized in May 2020 as the national Lockdown was extended. “The Lockdown Co…
Film and Video: The Horse is a Mirror of your Soul:" Teaching with the Documentary "Buck" (2011) Directed by Cindy Meehl
Descent
Debates from the 1990s to the present over the definitions of marriage and the family have shown us that kinship is, as it has always been, a highly charged domain of modern life. In the United States, the passage of the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996 was followed by its annulment as unconstitutional; in Nigeria, same‐sex marriage was banned in 2013; in France, debates over same‐sex adoption are front‐page news. Increasing class in‐marriage amon…
Putting Them in Museums? Reimagining the Path Forward
Slavery's Traces: In Search of Ashley's Sack
One of the most enigmatic objects on display in the new Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture is "Ashley's Sack." On loan from South Carolina's Middleton Place, this unbleached cotton sack features an embroidered text recounting the slave sale of a nine-year-old girl named Ashley and the gift of the sack by her mother. Until now, Ashley's identity has been unknown. New research by Mark Auslander traces Ashley's Sack …
Chief S.O. Alonge: Photographer to the Royal Court of Benin, Nigeria National Museum of African Art, Washington, DC September 17, 2014—July 31, 2016
“Chief S.O. Alonge: Photographer to the Royal Court of Benin, Nigeria” explores several overlapping historical relationships: between colonialism, postcolonialism, and photography; between the medium of photography and classic Benin Kingdom metal plaques and hip ornaments; and between photography as a mode of documenting and constituting interior domestic life and photography as a technology of royal ritual action. The exhibition emerges out of a…
By Iron Possessed: Fabrice Monteiro's Maroons: The Fugitive Slaves
At first glance, the still photographs by Fabrice Monteiro in his series Marrons, Les esclaves fugitifs (Maroons: The Fugitive Slaves) are the stuff of nightmare. They are hard to look at, and even harder to turn away from. These startling black-and-white photographs depict West African men wearing the kinds of metal devices used to inflict punishment under slavery in the Caribbean and the Americas. These include a heavy set of hooks, used to sto…
Film and Video
Film reviewed in this issue.ReMixing Possession: Dreaming Futures Past in the Work of Jim Chuchu
Responding to "Comfort Woman" Denial at Central Washington University
This article is the third of a three-part symposium. See parts one and two.In early April 2015, we learned that a Japanese language instructor at the university where we teach had invited online broadcaster Taniyama Yujiro to campus to screen his film Scottsboro Girls, a quite amateurish three-hour video devoted to the proposition that "comfort women" were not sexual slaves but instead were well-paid, self-interested prostitutes, who serviced the…
“Give Me Back My Children!”: Traumatic Reenactment and Tenuous Democratic Public Spheres
In this essay, I briefly review the cultural history of “historical reenactments” and consider one 19th century prelude to present-day traumatic reenactments. I then turn to three recent case studies, drawn from my fieldwork: first, the annual reenactment of a horrific 1946 mass lynching in Walton, County, Georgia; second, the daily mounting of a “historical experience” of slavery in Selma, Alabama; and third, a reenacted slave auction in St. Lou…
Touching the Past: Materializing Time in Traumatic “Living History” Reenactments
Many living history reenactors speak of “touching the past” in their performances. In nearly all instances, these profound experiences of intimate traffic with previous epochs and persons are brought about not through physical contact with historical artifacts but through deployments of replicas and props, including recently produced adornment, weaponry, vehicles, and tools. This essay explores the roles and functions of material reproductions or…
The Accidental Slaveowner: Revisiting a Myth of Race and Finding an American Family
Assemblies: Excavation and Reconstruction in Contemporary African Art
Coexistence: Contemporary Cultural Production in South Africa
Coexistence: Contemporary Cultural Production in South Africa. The Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA. January 22-June 29, 2003
On Of Revelation and Revolution
2001). On Of Revelation and Revolution. Interventions: Vol. 3, On Revelation and Revolution, pp. 1-4
On Of Revelation and Revolution
2001). On Of Revelation and Revolution. Interventions: Vol. 3, On Revelation and Revolution, pp. 1-4
Touching the Past: Materializing Time in Traumatic “Living History” Reenactments
Many living history reenactors speak of “touching the past” in their performances. In nearly all instances, these profound experiences of intimate traffic with previous epochs and persons are brought about not through physical contact with historical artifacts but through deployments of replicas and props, including recently produced adornment, weaponry, vehicles, and tools. This essay explores the roles and functions of material reproductions or…
Chief S.O. Alonge: Photographer to the Royal Court of Benin, Nigeria National Museum of African Art, Washington, DC September 17, 2014—July 31, 2016
“Chief S.O. Alonge: Photographer to the Royal Court of Benin, Nigeria” explores several overlapping historical relationships: between colonialism, postcolonialism, and photography; between the medium of photography and classic Benin Kingdom metal plaques and hip ornaments; and between photography as a mode of documenting and constituting interior domestic life and photography as a technology of royal ritual action. The exhibition emerges out of a…
Putting Them in Museums? Reimagining the Path Forward
Assemblies: Excavation and Reconstruction in Contemporary African Art
Coexistence: Contemporary Cultural Production in South Africa
Coexistence: Contemporary Cultural Production in South Africa. The Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA. January 22-June 29, 2003
On Of Revelation and Revolution
2001). On Of Revelation and Revolution. Interventions: Vol. 3, On Revelation and Revolution, pp. 1-4
Coexistence: Contemporary Cultural Production in South Africa
Coexistence: Contemporary Cultural Production in South Africa. The Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA. January 22-June 29, 2003
Assemblies: Excavation and Reconstruction in Contemporary African Art
The Accidental Slaveowner: Revisiting a Myth of Race and Finding an American Family
Touching the Past: Materializing Time in Traumatic “Living History” Reenactments
Many living history reenactors speak of “touching the past” in their performances. In nearly all instances, these profound experiences of intimate traffic with previous epochs and persons are brought about not through physical contact with historical artifacts but through deployments of replicas and props, including recently produced adornment, weaponry, vehicles, and tools. This essay explores the roles and functions of material reproductions or…
“Give Me Back My Children!”: Traumatic Reenactment and Tenuous Democratic Public Spheres
In this essay, I briefly review the cultural history of “historical reenactments” and consider one 19th century prelude to present-day traumatic reenactments. I then turn to three recent case studies, drawn from my fieldwork: first, the annual reenactment of a horrific 1946 mass lynching in Walton, County, Georgia; second, the daily mounting of a “historical experience” of slavery in Selma, Alabama; and third, a reenacted slave auction in St. Lou…
Film and Video
Film reviewed in this issue.ReMixing Possession: Dreaming Futures Past in the Work of Jim Chuchu
Responding to "Comfort Woman" Denial at Central Washington University
This article is the third of a three-part symposium. See parts one and two.In early April 2015, we learned that a Japanese language instructor at the university where we teach had invited online broadcaster Taniyama Yujiro to campus to screen his film Scottsboro Girls, a quite amateurish three-hour video devoted to the proposition that "comfort women" were not sexual slaves but instead were well-paid, self-interested prostitutes, who serviced the…
Slavery's Traces: In Search of Ashley's Sack
One of the most enigmatic objects on display in the new Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture is "Ashley's Sack." On loan from South Carolina's Middleton Place, this unbleached cotton sack features an embroidered text recounting the slave sale of a nine-year-old girl named Ashley and the gift of the sack by her mother. Until now, Ashley's identity has been unknown. New research by Mark Auslander traces Ashley's Sack …
Chief S.O. Alonge: Photographer to the Royal Court of Benin, Nigeria National Museum of African Art, Washington, DC September 17, 2014—July 31, 2016
“Chief S.O. Alonge: Photographer to the Royal Court of Benin, Nigeria” explores several overlapping historical relationships: between colonialism, postcolonialism, and photography; between the medium of photography and classic Benin Kingdom metal plaques and hip ornaments; and between photography as a mode of documenting and constituting interior domestic life and photography as a technology of royal ritual action. The exhibition emerges out of a…
By Iron Possessed: Fabrice Monteiro's Maroons: The Fugitive Slaves
At first glance, the still photographs by Fabrice Monteiro in his series Marrons, Les esclaves fugitifs (Maroons: The Fugitive Slaves) are the stuff of nightmare. They are hard to look at, and even harder to turn away from. These startling black-and-white photographs depict West African men wearing the kinds of metal devices used to inflict punishment under slavery in the Caribbean and the Americas. These include a heavy set of hooks, used to sto…
Descent
Debates from the 1990s to the present over the definitions of marriage and the family have shown us that kinship is, as it has always been, a highly charged domain of modern life. In the United States, the passage of the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996 was followed by its annulment as unconstitutional; in Nigeria, same‐sex marriage was banned in 2013; in France, debates over same‐sex adoption are front‐page news. Increasing class in‐marriage amon…
Putting Them in Museums? Reimagining the Path Forward
In Search of Lost Futures: Anthropological Explorations in Multimodality, Deep Interdisciplinarity, and Autoethnography
In Search of Lost Futures: Anthropological Explorations in Multimodality, Deep Interdisciplinarity, and Autoethnography
Introduction: In Search of Lost Futures
Where Shall We Place Our Hope?”: Covid-19 and the Imperiled National Body in South Africa's “Lockdown Collection”
all artwork shared courtesy of the artists and The Lockdown CollectionDuring April 2020, for the first twenty-one days of what South Africans term “the Lockdown” (elsewhere in the world referenced as “shelter in place” or quarantine), prominent South African artists were invited to create or share work that spoke to COVID-19 and its unfolding crises. A second series was organized in May 2020 as the national Lockdown was extended. “The Lockdown Co…
Film and Video: The Horse is a Mirror of your Soul:" Teaching with the Documentary "Buck" (2011) Directed by Cindy Meehl
Vehicles: Cars, Canoes, and Other Metaphors of Moral Imagination
Metaphor, as an act of human fancy, combines ideas in improbable ways to sharpen meanings of life and experience. Theoretically, this arises from an association between a sign-for example, a cattle car-and its referent, the Holocaust. These "sign-vehicles" serve as modes of semiotic transportation through conceptual space. Likewise, on-the-ground vehicles can be rich metaphors for the moral imagination. Following on this insight, Vehicles present…
Along the Ulcofauhatche: "Of Sorrow Songs and "Dried Indian Creek
Mark Auslander and Avis E. Williams recount the contested circumstances surrounding the naming of "Dried Indian Creek" in Newton County, Georgia and explore the lingering racial and institutional implications of this geographic history
Dwelling on my Falling: Yukiyo Kawano's Nuclear Vision
In August 2021, Yukiyo Kawano, a third generation Hiroshima hibakusha, was refused permission to install her sculptural evocation of the Nagasaki bombing, at the first commemoration of the atomic bombings within the National Park Service's Manhattan Project National Historical Park at Hanford, Washington, where plutonium for the "Fat Man" device was produced. The artist nonetheless raised the piece near the restricted Hanford zone. We consider th…
Before Nollywood: The Ideal Photo Studio curated by Amy Staples. Iké Udé: Nollywood Portraits Originating curator: Selene Wendt; Smithsonian curator: Karen Milbourne
Two photographic exhibitions at the National Museum of Africa Art offered profoundly different approaches to modern Nigerian visual culture. Iké Udé: Nollywood Portraits, a traveling exhibition, celebrated the Nigerian film industry from a transnational elite perspective. In contrast, Before Nollywood: The Ideal Photo Studio explored the popular studio photography of Solomon Osagie Alonge during the late colonial and early national era, documenti…
Heroes: Principles of African Greatness by Kevin D. Dumouchelle
Conceived of in conjunction with the exhibition (2019-2022) of the same name at the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, curator Kevin D. Dumouchelle's handsome book Heroes: Principles of African Greatness, is a significant stand-alone contribution to the popular study of African art (see Bourland 2021). This dynamic large-format volume reads diverse objects in NMAfA's collection through the concept of the heroic, sensitive to the tragic a…
History (11 works) · Art (10 works) · Sociology (8 works) · Computer Science (7 works) · Art history (5 works) · Visual arts (5 works) · Anthropological Studies and Insights (4 works) · Economics (4 works) · Philosophy (4 works) · Psychology (4 works)