visual

Brunias? Buttons ft. Caribbean Free and Slave Life @ Cooper-Hewitt

/ Jessica Marie Johnson / Leave a comment

Diaspora Hypertext, the Blog (Archived)

Collected in a 2013 post by Sarah D. Coffin, these buttons were posted on the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt blog some time ago. But material cultures of slavery never get old.

Some of her conclusions have been challenged in the comments (the author appears to confuse 18th century Dominica with Saint-Domingue), but the images appear to be renderings in the style of Bruinas or Brunias originals of figures devariascolores (black, gradations of mixed-race, and white) in 18th century dress.

The figure in the blue dress on this button, for example…

View original post 715 more words

DIGITAL: New Resource – “Slave Revolt in Jamaica, 1760-1761: A Cartographic Narrative”

/ Jessica Marie Johnson / 5 Comments

Vincent Brown (Harvard University) unveils a new resource for studying slavery and slave revolt in Jamaica: via Slave Revolt in Jamaica, 1760-1761: This animated thematic map narrates the spatial history of the greatest slave insurrection in the eighteenth century British Empire.  To teachers and researchers, the presentation offers a carefully curated archive of key documentary … Continue reading DIGITAL: New Resource – “Slave Revolt in Jamaica, 1760-1761: A Cartographic Narrative”

WEB: Visual Culture of the American Civil War

/ Jessica Marie Johnson / 2 Comments

New website: The historical record of the American Civil War includes a vast amount of visual material—photographs, illustrated news periodicals, comic publications, individually-published prints, almanacs, political cartoons, illustrated envelopes, trade cards, greeting cards, sheet music covers, money, and more. The era’s visual media heralded an unprecedented change in the production and availability of pictorial media … Continue reading WEB: Visual Culture of the American Civil War

CFP: “Pictures from an Expedition: Aesthetics of 19th-century Cartographic Exploration in the Americas” (Newberry Library)

/ Jessica Marie Johnson / Leave a comment

Call for Papers: Newberry Library Symposium, June 20-21, 2013, Chicago, IL “Pictures from an Expedition: Aesthetics of 19th-century Cartographic Exploration in the Americas” We seek historians, art historians, geographers, and scholars of visual culture for a symposium to be held in Chicago at the Newberry Library on June 20-21, 2013. The symposium will consider the … Continue reading CFP: “Pictures from an Expedition: Aesthetics of 19th-century Cartographic Exploration in the Americas” (Newberry Library)