The politics of the page in the case study of a magazine’s identification with Third Wordlist struggles

Mary Ikoniadou

16.00-17.00 (BST)

Illustrated periodicals have played a critical role in disseminating and performing Cold War cultural politics across national and ideological borders. In their entanglement with state or institutional actors, artistic or sports organisations, revolutionary groups and liberation movements, amongst others, periodicals have shaped notions of belonging for diverse readers, expressed in a host of visual and material formats. ‘The politics of the page’ is a research project which focuses on the visuality and materiality of illustrated periodicals produced and read against the backdrop of the Cold War. It is concerned with the aesthetic, historical, theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of periodicals.

The presentation will initially introduce the project, that I co-organise with Vincent Fröhlich at the University of Marburg, followed by the discussion of a case study of a Greek-language magazine published in East Germany in the 1960s. The case study will demonstrate the magazine’s articulations of solidarity with the so-called Third World and argue that these were rendered visible through notions of identification and metonymy. In these, the plead for the liberation and democratisation of Greece was ‘inserted' within an anti-imperialist, anti-US, Third Worldist struggle.

Mary Ikoniadou is a Lecturer in Photography at the University of Central Lancashire in the UK where she is an active member of the Research Centre for Migration, Diaspora and Exile (MIDEX). Her research on the intersection of visuality and politics, focuses on the role of print cultures during the Cold War.