113, School of Arts and Sciences
Central Campus
Ahmedabad University
Over the last ten years, the emphasis of my work and my life has shifted from detached scholarship to activism, and my means of expression from the pen alone to the photographic text. This talk explores how scholarship can morph into activism, and the way in which this shift can change thinking about art, photography and their relation to activism. It introduces the book that has emerged from the partnership with David Shulman. Finally, it explores the role of visual witnessing in the current war between Israel and Gaza and the repercussions of the war in the occupied territories.
Margaret Olin is a scholar and photographer. She writes on art historiography, critical theory, Jewish art, spatial practices and most recently photography, including Touching Photographs (University of Chicago Press, 2012) and, co-edited with Amos Morris-Reich, Photography and Imagination (Routledge, 2019). She is co-editor of Images: A Journal of Jewish Art and Visual Culture. Her photographs have been exhibited in the United States, Germany, and Israel. Her book of photographic texts, with David Shulman The Bitter Landscapes of Palestine, will be published in 2024 by Intellect Press. She is Senior Lecturer Emerita in the Department of Religious Studies, Yale University.
