The Coded Language of Empire
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 5733887 |
|---|---|
| Authors | K Craig (0000-0002-8909-0369, Institute for Digital Arts and Humanities, Indiana University, corresponding author), Arlene J Díaz (Latin American and Caribbean history, Indiana University), Arlene Díaz (Caribbean University), David Kloster (University Information Technology Services, Indiana University) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 129 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 475-516 |
| Publication date | 2024-06-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The American Historical Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0002-8762 • E-ISSN: 1937-5239 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/ahr/rhae179 |
| OpenAlex | W4399657076 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
The invention and maintenance of empire is a complex dance of narrative and action that, together, frame an empire (lowercase, among many empires) as Empire, the only one of its kind that matters for its subjects even in a global context where there are other competing empires. Scholars concerned with the cultural workings of imperialism have approached this reframe by exploring language and representation, and the meanings encrypted in both, as key cogs in empire-building machinery.1 Such coded hierarchical discourses, presented in both text and visual representation, play a role in justifying and naturalizing domination in order to inform and enable support for actions that legitimize the power of ruling or aspiring political elites or groups.2 The justification that makes an empire’s actions meaningful to its subjects requires a narrative engine that manifests particular values of “good” and “bad” as necessary to maintain the empire’s structure. Those values then need to be woven into everyday life, into the daily on-the-ground interactions between imperial agents and local inhabitants.3 This essay addresses the latent linguistic norms that result from these meaning-making efforts in the context of Cuba’s Third War of Independence (1895–98). It also details a novel methodological structure we used for our historical analysis of those efforts: a combination of collaboration and digital analytical tools that supported our exploration of the hidden themes in sources from both US empire and its imperial subjects, and that we pursued as a corrective to the “danger of one-way thinking” that US historian Paul Kramer cautions against.4
Ancient history · Empire · Linguistics · Colonial History and Postcolonial Studies · Computer Science · Global Political and Social Dynamics · History · Military History and Strategy · Philosophy
| Citations per year | 2 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2025 - 2026 (2) |
| Highly cited | No |