Book selection for Köken Ergun’s Young Turks exhibition

Date

10 MARCH 2016

A selection of books chosen by the artist Köken Ergun, and the exhibition curator Yulia Aksenova

This selection of books offers an introduction to the broader context of Köken Ergun’s Young Turks.

The issues raised by the exhibition are not limited to the particular story and localities explored in the project, but instead form part of the global information field, which shapes our ideas about the world.

This selection includes contemporary publications in history, sociology, anthropology, cultural theory, religion, and political science. The works discuss the most pressing issues of our time, including forms of postcolonial relations, the new faces of nationalism, geopolitics of education in a globalized world, migration, multiculturalism, the new distribution of labor and geoeconomic hierarchies, political design of identities, 21st century ethnic conflicts, and the role of religion in contemporary life.

A wider selection of books prepared by the artist and the curator are available at Garage Library.

Vyacheslav Morozov. Russia and the Other: Identity and the Boundaries of a Political Community

Moscow: Novoe Literaturnoe Obozrenie, 2009. — 656 pp.

St. Petersburg scholar Vyacheslav Morozov discusses global challenges to the existence of the state as a form of political community: the devaluation of sovereignty, extreme stratification of communities, mythologization of recent history, and so on. The book analyzes the thesis about the gap growing between foreign and national policies in the era of globalization and the dominance of media. Countries that have gone through painful political and ideological transformations, like Russia, are facing bigger challenges than the others.

Vladimir Malakhov. Cultural Differences and Political Boundaries in the Time of Global Migration

Moscow: Novoe Literaturnoe Obozrenie, 2009. — 232 pp.

One of the leading Russian experts on nationalism, Vladimir Malakhov, continues to deconstruct popular myths and stereotypes associated with the concepts of nation, the nation state, citizenship, and national identity. Building on historian Benedict Anderson’s theory of imagined communities, Vladimir Malakhov explores the nature of national borders and how they are drawn in the minds of people. He also discusses current issues in the development of nations: the different flows of migration, the forming of an information society, and the preservation of cultural diversity in the time of a global nationalist turn.

Robert W. Rydell. All the World's a Fair: Visions of Empire at American International Expositions, 1876–1916

Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015. — 330 pp.

Robert W. Rydell’s books All the World's a Fair and World of Fairs both explore the universe of World’s Fairs and, what is more important, the symbolic agenda of representation at these major events. Rydell focuses on the problems of world order legitimation, and the presentation of racial, social, and economic unfairness in those fairs. His thought-provoking study draws on archival records, newspaper and magazine articles, guidebooks, popular novels, and oral histories. Rydell is professor of history at Montana State University,

Thomas Pakenham. The Scramble for Africa: The White Man's Conquest of the Dark Continent from 1876 to 1912

New York: Random House, 1991. — 742 pp.

Author Thomas Pakenham is a world-renowned arborist and historian on diverse subjects, including African and British history. The book is brilliantly written and belongs to the genre of popular history, though it also possesses deep scientific value. The author deals with the dark pages of history and illustrates the conflict between the humanitarian motives of medical missionary David Livingstone and the colonization efforts of Belgium’s King Leopold II. This book was a winner of the WH Smith Literary Award and the Alan Paton Award.

Barbara Harlow and Mia Carter. Imperialism and Orientalism: A Documentary Sourcebook

Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishers Ltd., 1999. — 408 pp.

Barbara Harlow and Mia Carter are best known for their two-volume study Archives of Empire, but in this book they turn their focus to two major concepts of the 17th through 19th centuries: imperialism and Orientalism. The book consists of an unprecedented collection of archival and documentary materials that map British and European colonialism in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. The book serves as a source for further studies on the subject because it contains a comprehensive collection of treaties, company charters, travelers’ reports, parliamentary debates, literary exempla, and personality profiles that are complemented by maps, chronologies, bibliographies, and more.

Jerry Brotton. A History of the World in 12 Maps

New York: Viking, 2012. — 522 pp.

Professor, historian, and cartography expert Jerry Brotton argues that no map is ever wholly accurate or objective. He deals with the different and sometimes opposite perceptions of the world that emerge out of maps and the way they are presented.

In his book, the author begins with Ptolemy’s Geography and ends with the satellite-powered Google Earth, which leads to intriguing end results.

Frantz Fanon. The Wretched of the Earth

New York: Grove Press, 1963. — 256 pp.

The Martinique-born psychiatrist, philosopher, revolutionary, and writer Frantz Fanon became one of the most influential scholars in the field of post-colonial studies, critical theory, and Marxism. As a part of the Algerian Nationalist Movement he also became an important theorist of revolutionary struggle and racial difference in history. The Wretched of the Earth, which he wrote in Tunis, became his testament and provided heavy critique on both nationalism and colonialism. The book has had a major impact on civil rights, anticolonialism, and Black Consciousness Movements around the world.

 

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