An exploration of how an official French visual culture normalized Franceisquo;s colonial project and exposed citizens and subjects to racialized ideas of life in the empire.
By the end of World War I, having fortified its colonial holdings in the Caribbean, Latin America, Africa, the Indian Ocean, and Asia, France had expanded its dominion to the four corners of the earth. This volume examines how an official French visual culture normalized the country squo;s colonial project and exposed citizens and subjects alike to racialized ideas of life in the empire. Essays analyze aspects of colonialism through investigations into the art, popular literature, material culture, film, and exhibitions that represented, celebrated, or were created for Franceisquo;s colonies across the seas.
These studies draw from the rich documents and media dash;photographs, albums, postcards, maps, posters, advertisements, and children squo;s gamesodash;related to the nineteenth- and twentieth-century French empire that are held in the Getty Research Institute squo;s Association Connaissance de ltsquo;histoire de lgsquo;Afrique contemporaine (ACHAC) collections. ACHAC is a consortium of scholars and researchers devoted to exploring and promoting discussions of race, iconography, and the colonial and postcolonial periods of Africa and Europe.