The Language of the Sea: Flags and Identities in Early Modern Dutch Marine Painting

This article investigates the convergence between early modern Dutch marine painting and contemporaneous political identities and diplomatic conventions. It uses the depiction of flags on paintings of naval battles as a lens to query perceptions of national and regional identity as well as international hierarchy. It first introduces the phenomenon of flags on marine paintings and shows how these depictions are not random or ornamental but exhibit patterns and motifs. It then builds on this observation to pursue two further arguments. Firstly, it argues that the configuration of flags on paintings of naval battles resonates with the multi-layered body politic of the Dutch Republic, representing not just the States-General and the Dutch state, but also the towns, provinces, and admiralties as distinct units. Secondly, the positioning of the flags on paintings show an awareness of debates about international hierarchy and thus a convergence with diplomatic practice. The overall purpose of the article is to underscore the value of flag research, and more generally of crossover research between the disciplines of New Diplomatic History, art history, and vexillology

Tabulae imperii Europaei :mapping European empire

PhD ThesisThis thesis examines the unclear political nature of the European Union and current academic theories on how to understand and classify the EU. Placing the EU in the macrohistorical context from which it emerged, the project first critiques competing definitions of “empire” before examining the etymological and philosophical genealogy of imperium. It then uses textual analysis to trace how evolving interpretations of imperium and “empire” have influenced European historiography and political philosophy. This analysis demonstrates that “empire” is not a descriptive taxonomy but a normative discourse, expressing an imagination of power, legitimacy and sole sovereignty, used to validate the inherent inequality and manifest destiny of an imagined European community. This discourse must be publicly expressed in order to have validity, and it is most effectively conveyed in visual language. The study demonstrates that of the many forms of visual language, by far the most powerful is cartography. But while maps represent the world rather than reflect it, map-readers ascribe to maps an authority that is rarely questioned, accepting maps’ portrayals as truthful. Having established and justified a methodology based in semiotics and semantics, the project moves into an analytical focus by semiotically deconstructing the most publicly-accessible EU maps in print and virtual form and on Euro currency. These analyses demonstrate that EU maps intersect with EU iconography and inadvertently construct an imagined community defined by the discourse of empire. Such maps show the Union not as it is but as it should be – the sole sovereign of European civilisation, with supreme power, exclusive legitimacy, a manifest destiny to unite the Europeans, and inhabited by an imagined community whose imagined history partly masks an inherent, yet acknowledged, inequality. This dissertation concludes that the EU is not a sui generis construct but instead embodies a familiar historical discourse – the European Union as Empire. Unless specified, all images have been digitally photographed by the author from the cited books or copied from the cited websites, in accordance with the Copyright Licensing Act (2006) of UUK/SCOP Higher Education institutions. All websites referenced in the text were last accessed on the date of binding, 1st October 2013. Any errors of fact or interpretation remain the author’s own.The Economic and Social Research Council

The Functions of Portolan Maps: An evaluation of the utility of manuscript nautical cartography from the thirteenth through sixteenth centuries

In the thirteenth century, following the expansion of seafaring city-states and kingdoms in the Mediterranean, a new form of cartography emerged, known as portolan charts. These maps, more secular and scientific than earlier cartographic genres, were produced between the thirteenth and seventeenth centuries, primarily in the western Mediterranean. While portolan charts and atlases have been studied since the nineteenth century, they remain enigmatic. One of the most important questions about them has been: ‘what was their function’? Most scholars have argued that they were fundamentally utilitarian maps, used for navigation. This thesis challenges that theory, and proposes that portolan maps were not navigational. To critically assess the function of portolan maps, the first chapter evaluates their methods of construction, as determined through an analysis of primary sources, and an original archaeological reconstruction of a portolan chart. The second chapter presents seven case studies of charts, atlases, and their makers, to explore the cartographers’ output, the specific functions of their maps, and how they relate to the genre as a whole. The third chapter analyses the contemporary documentary and literary evidence to gain a better understanding of the economic market for portolan maps. The fourth chapter evaluates their functions, in two parts: the first discusses how the maps could have been used on ships, how they changed over time, and investigates the practical utility of their toponymy and hydrography. The second part explores their alternative functions, which were as administrative and encyclopaedic maps, spiritual and scholarly maps, and aesthetic objets d’art. Although some evidence suggests portolan maps were used at sea, it is largely circumstantial and unspecific. The evaluation of their construction, specific functions, the output of cartographers, and their practical utility, instead indicates that portolan maps were not navigationally useful, but embodied number of other purposes

Operation Summer Care: Territories of the Stewardship-Hospitality Complex

Operation Summer Care studies the expanding interest that the hospitality industry takes in the biogeophysical environment. Natural surroundings have long been an essential operational precondition of tourism in the global sunbelt, but contemporary environmental anxieties increasingly motivate different strata of hosts to take a more active role in environmental management. Usually the domain of the state, biogeophysical entities and their spaces—plants and animals, sand formations, wetlands, entire ecosystems and protected areas—are measured, ordered, and managed by actors adjacent to the tourism industry. At the same time, the socio-technical mechanisms of environmental intervention and calculation are conveniently framed as practices of care and stewardship for the shared infrastructures of the summer. Attending to both these tendencies, the project examines how, and through which narratives, the hospitality industry overlaps with environmental science and management to create the conditions for a calculative governance of the biogeophysical. The apparatus of this relatively novel and evolving entanglement between the tourism industry and environmental management—one that involves not just hotels, operators, and tourists, but also municipalities, NGOs, civilian associations, research institutes, activists, awards, standards, and new technologies—is what I call the stewardship-hospitality complex. To understand the phenomenon, I review three empirical cases in Greece, in which the techno-scientific apparatus of environmental calculation mixes with fables of both paradisic quiescence and planetary stewardship: a popular eco-certification scheme for beaches, the environmental management practices of a large hospitality corporation, and an island municipality’s responses to geologic events. In all three cases I show how stewardship and hospitality weave into each other, strengthening both the moral and infrastructural apparatus of tourism in the global sunbelt. Amidst the interrelated imaginaries of ecological collapse and Anthropocenic care, environmental stewardship is presented as yet another benefit that tourism can offer. As a result, not only is the identity of “the host” infused with imaginaries of “the environmental steward,” but also coastal natures are fixed with tourism, as their organization and priorities are defined through the programs of human leisure

Visual Representations of the Korean Nation-State: 1880s-1910s

This thesis investigates visual representations of the Korean nation-state from the 1880s to the 1910s and their impacts on state and nation-building of the period. After the opening of ports in 1897, Korea faced the task of reconciling the traditional and new, both in the interpretations of the Korean nation-state and methods of visual representation. In this setting, this study explores the role of visual imagery in the authentication of information and intangible ideas, particularly in rationalising the various intertwining and at times conflicting visions of the new Korean nation-state. Thematic case studies of royal portraits, illustrations of historical figures, the Korean flag, imperial emblem, the map of Korea, and geographic landscapes are analysed in relation to core strands of nation-building that coexisted at the turn of the twentieth century. Through these cases, the research deciphers the relationship between the processes of the creation and re-contextualisation of representative images and the gradual formation of a modern Korean nation-state

Signifying Europe

Signifying Europe provides a systematic overview of the wide range of symbols used to represent Europe and Europeanness, both by the political elite and the broader public. Through a critical interpretation of the meanings of the various symbols—and their often contradictory or ambiguous dimensions—Johan Fornäs uncovers illuminating insights into how Europe currently identifies itself and is identified by others outside its borders. While the focus is on the European Union’s symbols, those symbols are also interpreted in relation to other symbols of Europe. Offering insight into the cultural dimensions of European unification, this volume will appeal to students, scholars and politicians interested in European policy issues, cultural studies and postnational cultural identity

Tra Grecia e Oriente: geografie identitarie dell'immaginario russo nel periodo simbolista

L\u2019idea centrale della presente indagine \ue8 che il periodo simbolista russo abbia riformulato la propria identit\ue0 culturale in termini simbolici di trasferimento dell\u2019identit\ue0 spaziale, plasmando e utilizzando in chiave identitaria un luogo immaginario, una \u201cregione psichica\u201d formata da una sovrapposizione di mondo greco classico e Oriente. Lo studio rientra nell\u2019ambito delle riconsiderazioni da un punto di vista spaziale dei fenomeni del modernismo occidentale, avendo come obiettivo l\u2019inserimento del fenomeno simbolista russo all\u2019interno del pi\uf9 vasto modernismo europeo. L\u2019indagine affianca lo studio di testi letterari e teorici e dell\u2019arte visuale all\u2019analisi di mappe geografiche; queste ultime sono presentate in due accezioni differenti, essendo, a seconda dei casi, oggetto di indagine o strumento critico elaborato a posteriori. Per delineare un contesto pi\uf9 ampio, oltre alle opere del canone simbolista, sono inclusi nello studio testi non strettamente riconducibili al movimento stesso, ma attinenti al relativo periodo storico: discorsi dell\u2019ideologia dominante e imperiale, scritti odeporici da posizioni marginali e minoritarie, studi geografici di anarchici e scienziati.The aim of the dissertation is to show how the Russian symbolist period reformulated its cultural identity from a spatial point of view, shaping an imaginary place formed by the hybridisation between Ancient Greece and the Orient. Literary and critical texts will be analysed together with visual texts and geographical maps and, in order to investigate a wider context, discourses from imperial ideology, odeporic writings from marginal positions and geographical studies from the same historical period will be added to the main corpus of works

The Visual Politics of Taiwanese Nationalism: Contested National Identities in the Imagery of the Sunflower Movement

This dissertation explores how national identity is constructed and contested in visual media by analyzing the use of national symbols in the visual materials produced by the 2014 Sunflower Movement in Taiwan. Through comparison with imagery published by the governments Mainland Affairs Council, I examine different conceptions of national identity circulating in contemporary Taiwanese society. I also consider how visual materials contribute to the construction and reproduction of national identities. My analysis of the imagery produced by the Sunflower Movement indicates a reformulation of Taiwanese national identity. While these images frame Taiwan primarily in opposition to a Chinese identity promoted by the ruling Nationalist Party (KMT), they also selectively appropriate symbols typically associated with Chinese identity. This re-signification indicates the need for fine-grained, contextual analyses of the construction and contestation of conventionally national symbols. I develop a method of visual analysis based on social semiotics, demonstrating its usefulness in analyzing the visual reproduction of implicit attitudes and beliefs, including national identity. I apply this method to a range of visual materials produced by participants in the Sunflower Movement photographs, drawings, paintings, and posters and compare these with government imagery. Chapter 2 presents the rationale for a visual analysis of national identity. I then review the dominant conceptions of Chinese and Taiwanese identity over the past 150 years, highlighting how the Sunflower Movement imagery both adopts and adapts existing conceptions of national identity. The subsequent chapters analyse three themes in the Sunflower Movements imagery. First, I examine how these images appropriate the Republic of China flag, resignifying it from a symbol synonymous with KMTs Chinese nationalism to one associated with a local Taiwanese identity. Next, I consider how symbols conventionally associated with Chinese history are variously evoked to critique or legitimate different conceptions of the nation in Taiwan. Finally, I explore how maps and map-like logos combine spatial and affective imagery to frame Taiwan as political territory distinct from China. My conclusion considers opportunities and limitations of using visual analysis to study national identity, and situates the project in the literatures on Taiwanese identity and on national identity more broadly