Rethinking Borders

1996

John C. Welchman, editor

The first guide to the new aesthetic practices of “border theory.”

Outlining a critical framework for border discourses, Rethinking Borders is a crucial guide to the reconfigurations of gender, identity, and aesthetic practice that are transforming our culture at the end of the millennium.

Contributors: David Avalos, Sue Best, Beatriz Colomina, Bracha Lichtenberg-Ettinger, Brian Massumi, Charles Merewether, Celeste Olalquiaga, Paul Patton, Nelly Richard, Trinh T. Minh-ha.

The project of “border theory” is to test the boundaries not only between nations, but also between cultural productions, identities, sexualities, and disciplines. Rethinking Borders offers the first comprehensive introduction to the multiplicity of voices and issues being addressed in this vital new field of inquiry, providing a critical context for contemporary discussions of theories of art and architecture, contemporary film criticism, visual culture, and cultural politics.

The eminent artists, scholars, and cultural critics represented in Rethinking Borders raise critical issues about the border cultures that we live within and traverse during the last decade of the twentieth century. Marking a new stage in the debates over postmodernism, critical theory, and postcolonialism, these essays address a broad range of subjects. Included are Celeste Olalquiaga’s reading of the “subcultural cross-dressing” of Latin American popular cultures; Brian Massumi’s creation of a theoretical landscape centered on the body image of Ronald Reagan; Trinh T. Minh-ha’s compelling meditation on the conditions of migration and displacement; and Charles Merewether’s discussion of the intersection of public and private realms in the work of two contemporary Colombian women artists. In his conclusion, John C. Welchman reviews the implications of varying understandings of “the border”as they appear in recent critical theory.

Outlining a critical framework for border discourses, Rethinking Borders is a crucial guide to the reconfigurations of gender, identity, and aesthetic practice that are transforming our culture at the end of the millennium.

Contributors: David Avalos, California State U, San Marcos; Sue Best, U of Western Sydney; Beatriz Colomina, Princeton U; Bracha Lichtenberg-Ettinger; Brian Massumi, McGill U; Charles Merewether, Getty Center; Celeste Olalquiaga, Cooper Union; Paul Patton, U of Sydney; Nelly Richard; Trinh T. Minh-ha, U of California, Berkeley.

Copublished with Macmillan, UK


John C. Welchman teaches in the visual arts at the University of California, San Diego. He is coauthor of The Dada and Surrealist Word-Image (1989) and author of Modernism Relocated (1995).

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