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Severed Heads in Iraqi Diasporic Visual Production: Aleiby, Baldin and Alsoudani

Hamdar, Abir

Severed Heads in Iraqi Diasporic Visual Production: Aleiby, Baldin and Alsoudani Thumbnail


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Abstract

This essay examines the trope of the decapitated, severed head as it appears in a range of works produced by three emigrant Iraqi artists: Afifa Aleiby, Baldin Ahmad and Ahmed Alsoudani. Drawing on a range of cultural, political and philosophical readings of the severed head by figures such as Adriana Cavarero, Julia Kristeva and Francois Debrix, the essay seeks to map the diverse affects, meanings and contexts the severed head takes on in Aleiby, Baldin and Alsoudani’s paintings and sculptures from Saddam’s dictatorship to the present. What kind of affects – horror, disgust, pleasure, ecstasy – does the spectacle of the severed head generate? How does the figure of the head detached from the body become a metonymy or synechdoche for the political state of exile, displacement or alienation? Finally, what function does the representation of the severed head play in the production and articulation of loss, trauma and mourning.

Citation

Hamdar, A. (2023). Severed Heads in Iraqi Diasporic Visual Production: Aleiby, Baldin and Alsoudani. Textual Practice, 37(8), 1181-1201. https://doi.org/10.1080/0950236x.2022.2115545

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Apr 4, 2022
Online Publication Date Sep 2, 2022
Publication Date 2023
Deposit Date Apr 26, 2022
Publicly Available Date Sep 5, 2022
Journal Textual Practice
Print ISSN 0950-236X
Electronic ISSN 1470-1308
Publisher Taylor and Francis Group
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 37
Issue 8
Pages 1181-1201
DOI https://doi.org/10.1080/0950236x.2022.2115545
Public URL https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1209833

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Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Copyright Statement
© 2022 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.


Published Journal Article (2.8 Mb)
PDF

Licence
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Copyright Statement
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.




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