Abstract:

The visual turn in the second half of the twentieth century influenced the development of a new direction in the humanities, known today as visual studies. This interdisciplinary field made possible the rapprochement of scientists from different fields of scientific knowledge. Researchers turned their attention to visual information, which combines in encoded form information about the world around us in all its diverse manifestations.

Visual history of Central Asia is a dynamic field of study that uses images and visual materials to explore the history and culture of the region. It combines methods of history, art history, anthropology, sociology, cultural studies and other disciplines. In the era of digitalization, scientists are increasingly turning to the visual embodiment of life in images of the past and outlines of the future. We can say that history today is filled with images of each era, the study of which is aimed at understanding the ways of their reconstruction, representation and visualization in order to present them to the general public.

I invite you to discuss the issues of studying and representing visual ideas about yourself, your history in the research of historians, cultural scientists, anthropologists, art historians, philosophers working with materials from Central Asia:

- Visual history and public history: general and specific subjects of study;

- How differently do researchers from different disciplines approach visualizing the past of Central Asia and its modern appearance;

- Who, for whom and how visualizes images of the history and culture of Central Asia?

- What subjects and images can be explored in visual sources of different historical periods (traditional visual coding systems in folk art, posters, photographs, documentaries, feature films, television programs, etc.)?

- Non-binary history of visual images of the historical memory of Central Asia during the Soviet period: dialectics and dialogue with ideology in the process of gaining agency by national elites.

- Visual studies as the formation of memory and new agency.

The round table was organized as part of the scientific project IRN AR14871932.