
Stereotypes often cast communism as a defunct, bankrupt ideology and a relic of the distant past. However, recent political movements like Europe's anti-austerity protests, the Arab Spring, and Occupy Wall Street suggest that communism is still very much relevant and may even hold the key to a new, idealized future. In The Oxford Handbook of Communist Visual Cultures, contributors trace the legacies of communist ideology in visual culture, from buildings and monuments, murals and sculpture, to recycling campaigns and wall newspapers, all of which work to make communism's ideas and values material. Contributors work to resist the widespread demonization of communism, demystifying its ideals and suggesting that it has visually shaped the modern world in undeniable and complex ways. Together, contributors answer curcial questions like: What can be salvaged and reused from past communist experiments? How has communism impacted the cultures of late capitalism? And how have histories of communism left behind visual traces of potential utopias? An interdisciplinary look at the cultural currency of communism today, The Oxford Handbook of Communist Visual Cultures demonstrates the value of revisiting the practices of the past to form a better vision of the future.
This volume investigates how communist ideology continues to manifest and exert influence through visual culture in the contemporary era. Editors Aga Skrodzka, Katarzyna Marciniak, and Xiaoning Lu assemble an interdisciplinary group of scholars to analyze the material remnants of communist states. By examining artifacts ranging from architecture to propaganda, the contributors argue that these visual traces remain active components of modern political and cultural discourse rather than mere historical relics.
What You Will Find
Scope Limits
Scholars and critics identify this work as a significant interdisciplinary resource for understanding the persistence of communist aesthetics in the modern world. Readers frequently note the academic density of the prose and the breadth of the visual evidence presented by the contributors.
Page Count:
800
Publication Date:
2020-01-01
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
ISBN-10:
0190885556
ISBN-13:
9780190885557
No comments yet. Be the first to share your thoughts!