Episode 21 - Image-Thinking & Travelling Concepts with Mieke Bal

We discuss Image-Thinking: Artmaking as Cultural Analysis by Mieke Bal. Mieke (www.miekebal.org) started as a literary scholar. Her commitment is to interdisciplinary approaches to cultural artifacts and their potential effects. She focuses on gender, migratory culture, psychoanalysis, and the critique of capitalism. Mieke published 45 books and curated many exhibitions. She directed films and documentaries, many of which are exhibited as video installations in museums over the world. Her books include a trilogy on political art: Endless Andness, Thinking in Film, and Of What One Cannot Speak. Mieke supervised 81 PhDs. She (co-)made documentaries on migratory culture, and films which she calls ‘theoretical fictions.’ A Long History of Madness argues for a more humane treatment of psychosis, and was exhibited in a site-specific version, Saying It, in the Freud Museum in London. Madame B was combined with paintings by Edvard Munch in the Munch Museum in Oslo. Reasonable Doubt is about the philosopher René Descartes and explores the social aspects of thinking. The installation Don Quixote: tristes figuras is exhibited as a sixteen channel video work. Becoming Vera is a documentary about a girl who is "three years old. Living in three worlds". Her latest film, It’s About Time! Reflections on Urgency was produced in Poland (2020), just before the corona pandemic. It's a short film and you can watch it in full on Mieke's website.

She was recently was elected to the one-year chair “L’invention de l’Europe par les langues et les cultures”, founded as one of three “chaires annuelles” by the Collège de France.

Image-Thinking proposes a new model of synthesis of creative and intellectual work. It merges theoretical and practical considerations in innovative and empowering ways, while clarifying difficult concepts through accounts of practice including trauma, agency, identity and affect.

We also briefly discuss Mieke's influential idea of "travelling concepts", which she introduced in her 2002 book Travelling Concepts in the Humanities: A Rough Guide.

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I hope you enjoy the episode!
Mario http://lifefromplatoscave.com/   

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Illustration © by Julien Penning, Light One Art: https://www.instagram.com/light_one_art/