Art and Sovereignty in Global Politics

This volume aims to question, supplement, and revise current understandings of the relationship between aesthetic and political operations. The authors transcend disciplinary boundaries and nurture a wide-ranging sensibility about art and sovereignty, two highly complex and interwoven dimensions of human experience that have rarely been explored by scholars in one conceptual space. Chapters consider the intertwining of political structures and modernist artistic forms, including the relationships between nationalism and official portraiture, museums and cultural property, and territoriality and architectural history. Other chapters examine populist politics that emerged as art became commercialized and mediated, engaging industrial design and popular entertainment industries, and producing national and minority cinema, ethnic crafts for domestic markets, and performance art that contests national citizenship. In exploring the nexus of art and sovereignty, contributors highlight power relations and provide critical commentary on repercussions of colonialism and notions of universal truths rooted in Western ideals. By interfering with established dichotomies related to art and sovereignty, all contributors fuel a resistance to traditional definitions of "Art" and encourage a new perspective on the co-constitution of artworks and practices of sovereignty.

Douglas Howland is Buck Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, USA. He is, most recently, author of International Law and Japanese Sovereignty: The Emerging Global Order in the 19th Century (2016) and co-editor (with Luise White) of The State of Sovereignty: Territories, Laws, Populations (2009).
Elizabeth Lillehoj is Professor of Asian Art History with a specialization in premodern Japan, teaching at DePaul University in Chicago, USA. She is the editor of three volumes on East Asian art and author of Art and Palace Politics in Japan, 1580s-1680s (2011).
Maximilian Mayer is Research Professor at the German Studies Center of Tongji University, Shanghai, with a specialization in International Relations, Science, Technology, and Arts. He is co-editor of The Global Politics of Science and Technology Vol.1 and Vol.2 (2014).

1. Introduction: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Art and Sovereignty .- 2. Space and Sovereignty: A Reverse Perspective .- 3. The International Movement to Protect Literary and Artistic Property .- 4. Dongbei, Manchukuo, Manchuria: Territory, Artifacts, and the Multiple Bodies of Sovereignty in Northeast Asia .- 5. Claims .- 6. Stolen Buddhas and Sovereignty Claims .- 7. Art by Dispossession at El Paso Saddleback Company: Commodification and Graduated Sovereignty in Global Capitalism .- 8. Claiming Sovereignty through Equestrian Spectacle in Northern Cameroon .- 9. Identity and Sovereignty in Asian Art Cinema: Digital Diaspora Films of South Korea and Malaysia .- 10. Re-viewing Sovereignty: North Korean Authoritarianism and Art .- 11. Sovereignty as Performance and Video Art: Citizenship between International Relations and Artistic Representation .- 12. Directions for Future Research on Art, Sovereignty, and Global Affairs.