Iconoclastic Controversies
By Nico Carpentier
This book combines photography and written text to analyse the role of memorials and commemoration sites in the construction of antagonistic nationalism. Taking Cypriot memorializations as a case study, it shows how these memorials often support, but sometimes also undermine, the discursive-material assemblage of nationalism.
Aims
The Iconoclastic Controversies project is a research project with multiple aims and focal points. First, as a research project, Iconoclastic Controversies enquires into the relationship of memorials and commemoration sites with antagonistic nationalism. The second aim of Iconoclastic Controversies is to contribute to the more general discussions about the relationship between the discursive and the material, as theorized in an earlier publication, the Discursive-Material Knot (Carpentier, 2017). The third aim of the Iconoclastic Controversies project is to bring a more critical and interventionist approach to the analysis, by deconstructing and de-naturalizing the Greek Cypriot hegemonic antagonistic nationalist discourse, and the material support that is provided by the majority of the memorials and commemoration sites in the south of Cyprus. Finally, the Iconoclastic Controversies research project also aims to rethink the ways that academics communicate their research outcomes, moving away from an exclusive emphasis on the written text. Moreover, the research project demonstrates how academic communicational practices —written and non-written— are not outside knowledge production processes, and cannot be confined to a second, disconnected stage. In contrast, academic communicational practices can be seen to form an integrated part of knowledge production.
Contents
Chapter 1: An Introduction to Iconoclastic Controversies
Chapter 2: Communicating Academic Knowledge beyond the Written Academic Text
Chapter 3: On Antagonism and Nationalism – A Discursive- Material Re- Reading
Chapter 4: The Discourses and Materialities of Cypriot Antagonistic Nationalism
Chapter 5: The Iconoclastic Controversies Photographs
Chapter 6: The Reception of the Two Cypriot Exhibitions
(with Vaia Doudaki, Yiannis Christidis and Fatma Nazli Köksal)
Chapter 7: The Interviews
Nico Carpentier is Extraordinary Professor at Charles University (Prague, Czech Republic), and President of IAMCR.
The above text is from the publisher’s description of the book:
Title: Iconoclastic Controversies: A photographic inquiry into antagonistic nationalism
Author: Nico Carpentier
Published: 2021
Pages: 166
Publisher: Intellect Books