The oral-visual nexus: Rethinking visuality in Mali

مرکز و کتابخانه مطالعات اسلامی به زبان های اروپایی

منو

" The oral-visual nexus: Rethinking visuality in Mali "
Kristina Marie Van Dyke S. P. Blier

Document Type	:	Latin Dissertation
Language of Document	:	English
Record Number	:	55358
Doc. No	:	TL25312
Call number	:	‭3174059‬
Main Entry	:	Kristina Marie Van Dyke
Title & Author	:	The oral-visual nexus: Rethinking visuality in Mali\ Kristina Marie Van Dyke
College	:	Harvard University
Date	:	2005
Degree	:	Ph.D.
student score	:	2005
Page No	:	200-200 p.
Abstract	:	My dissertation explores the changing status of objects and architecture in Mali through an examination of three case studies: the traditional sculpture of the Bamana Jo society, the Musée National du Mali, and the historic site of Hamdallaye, the 19th century capital of the Islamic theocracy called the Dina. I suggest that material form has been over-privileged by art historians working in Africa as the result of a reliance on representational paradigms. I argue that a consideration of the role of vision in Malian epistemology forces a rethinking of visuality there in terms of orality. The oral-visual nexus produces definitions of objects and architecture that are considerably more performative, dynamic, and ephemeral and requires a reconsideration of notions of time and history. Whereas Western concepts of objects and architecture suggest that history can be embedded in material form, in the Malian context, I show that history is made present through engagement with nodes in a larger network of spiritual and temporal flows and intensities. The material form of objects and architecture serves as a site of projection or framing device for enacted history, but is not intrinsic to it.
Subject	:	Communication and the arts; Social sciences; Visuality; Mali; Orality; Museums; Architecture; Art history; African history; 0331:African history; 0377:Art history
Added Entry	:	S. P. Blier
Added Entry	:	Harvard University