Seeing Across Cultures in the Early Modern World

Dana Leibsohn is Priscilla Paine van der Poel Professor of Art History at Smith College, USA. Jeanette Favrot Peterson is an Associate Professor of History of Art and Architecture at the University of California, Santa Barbara, USA.

• Contents: Preface; Introduction: geographies of sight, Dana Leibsohn; Part I Perspective and Mimesis: Perspective and its discontents or St Lucy's eyes, Yoriko Kobayashi-Sato and Mia M. Mochizuki; Perceiving blackness, envisioning power: Chalma and Black Christs in colonial Mexico, Jeanette Favrot Peterson; Competing and complementary visions of the court of the Great Mogor, Saleema Waraich. Part II Blindness and Memory: Visual knowledge/facing blindness, Bronwen Wilson; Blindness materialized: disease, decay, and restoration in the Napoleonic Description de l'Egypte (1809-1828), Liza Oliver; Gone: memory and visuality in early modern West Africa, Mark Hinchman. Part III Colonial Visualities: Without a face: voicing Moctezuma II's image at Chapultepec Park, Mexico City, Patrick Thomas Hajovsky; Markers: Le Moyne de Morgues in 16th-century Florida, Todd P. Olsen; Tourism, occupancy and visuality in North India, ca.1750-1858, Natasha Eaton. Part IV Seeing Across Time: Understanding visuality, Claire Farago; Index.

'Ranging from viceregal Mexico to Akbar's India, the authors of this timely and diverse collection practice what theorists of early modern globalization have only lately preached: that the world was understood to be connected and mutually intelligible in the age of sail and gunpowder. There was plenty of wonder, mutual discovery, and violent misunderstanding, but the hard nationalist and regionalist divisions came later, and for too long they clouded scholars' vision of the early modern past. In addition to their efforts to reveal early modern worlds in their own terms, the authors offer new insights to scholars beyond art history both by rigorous comparisons and through re-examination of venerable theoretical models and disciplinary boundaries. It is sure to provoke considerable discussion, and likely some controversy.' Kris Lane, Tulane University, USA 'The latest entry from Ashgate in one of the most innovative and stimulating new art history publication series, 'Transculturalisms 1400-1700,' this collection of essays takes up the complex issue of what some scholars are calling 'visuality,' a conception of vision itself in a given culture... a fascinating collection...' Cassone 'The most important question these essays raise ... especially from the perspective of early modern scholars not in the field of art history, is the problem of commensurability. Commensurability has become a central theme of early modern studies as the field has moved away from its European roots and become increasingly global. The study of encounters in the early modern world inevitably raises the question of how culture translates across racial, ethnic, and geographic divides, and this issue becomes more urgent as scholars abandon their Eurocentric focus and binary categories of European versus other.' Sixteenth Century Journal '... thought-provoking ...' Journal of Historical Geography