University of Heidelberg

Book on "The Power of Things" by Lieselotte E. Saurma-Jeltsch and Anja Eisenbeiß

13. Jan. 2011

The publication "The Power of Things and the Flow of Cultural Transformations" includes the papers presented at the Cluster's lecture series held in the winter term 2009/10 at the Karl Jaspers Centre.

Material artefacts such as monuments, paintings, manuscripts, carpets, vessels etc. are signs of cultural self-definition even if they are integrated from far away. Thus culture is in a permanent process of becoming "colonized" by objects getting so familiar, that they are embedded in the social and economic context as "natural indigenous" things. Normally, these processes were not guided consciously; it is rather a question of cultural achievements, of objects being transferred from single groups or even individuals in the language of their own contexts, increasing the own cultural identity. Such forms of transgression demand an inappreciable process of adaptation. Therefore, the effort of integration assumes a translation in inner cultural self-understanding, an adaptation of knowledge and the framing of objects in their new traditional context, which is subject to the papers collected in this volume.

Among others David J. Roxburgh (Harvard University) wrote on "The 'Journal' of Ghiyath al-Din Naqqash, Timurid Envoy to Khan Balïgh, and Chinese Art and Architecture"; Timon Screech (SOAS, London) presented "The Cargo of the New Year's Gift: Pictures from London to India and Japan, 1614"; Nicholas Thomas (University of Cambridge) introduced "The Power of Maori Things: Tene Waitere's Carving and Colonial History", and Marina Warner (University of Essex) contributed the essay "Riding the Carpet: The Vehicle of Stories in the Arabian Nights".

The volume has been edited by Prof. Dr. Lieselotte E. Saurma-Jeltsch
 and Dr. des Anja Eisenbeiß. It was published by Deutscher Kunstverlag in December 2010.

Further information:

Content and preface of the book (PDF)
Announcement by Deutscher Kunstverlag
Lecture Series "The Power of Things and the Flow of Cultural Transformations"
Profile Prof. Dr. Lieselotte E. Saurma-Jeltsch
Profile Dr. des Anja Eisenbeiß
Research Project D3 "Images of Alterity