Unseeing Empire

“Bakirathi Mani demands that we expand the geographic and temporal frame through which to grasp South Asian American representation so that we can engage with the processes of U.S. settler colonialism and racialization. Unseeing Empire makes an outstanding contribution to Asian American and South Asian diaspora and visual culture studies.” - Gayatri Gopinath, author of Unruly Visions: The Aesthetic Practices of Queer Diaspora

“Beautifully written, meticulously crafted, and combining powerful personal reflection with rigorous scholarship, Unseeing Empire brings various sets of photographic archives and practices of the early twenty-first century into conversation, from fine art photography and vernacular images to ethnographic pictures. This impressive book makes a vital contribution to several fields, including contemporary art and visual culture studies, museum and curatorial studies, postcolonial theory, and Asian American and American studies.” - Nicole R. Fleetwood, author of Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration

“Unseeing Empire joins an exciting body of scholarship that examines the intersections of visual culture, racial formation, and affect.... [It] implores us to remember the colonial legacies of documentation, surveillance, and display that continue to haunt the images we hope to see.” - Manan Desai, Journal of American Studies