Image Critique and the Fall of the Berlin Wall

Sunil Manghani's Image Critique & the Fall of the Berlin Wall is the best sort of scholarly book-an intellectually grounded and theoretically adventurous critical performance. Through his concept of image critique, Manghani makes a virtue out of the many attributes of images that bedevil visual cultural studies, rightly insisting that rather than domesticating images for the tyranny of the word, scholars must do visual studies from the ground of images, in the process reconceptualizing theory and criticism. Manghani adeptly anchors his insights in close engagements with images, most notably images from the event of the fall of the Berlin Wall. If heeded, Manghani's book will change the trajectory of visual cultural studies by making critique a performance with force in the world. - Kevin DeLuca, University of Georgia. An eloquent treatment of how images shape and are shaped by their environment - by history, politics, individual and collective practice, and the media. Manghani takes us on an engaging ride through the diverse visual journeys extending from the fall of the Berlin Wall. The book enriches and alters how we can - and should - understand the Wall and its memory. - Barbie Zelizer, University of Pennsylvania Required reading for all those in visual culture - Nicholas Mirzoeff, New York University Manghani's Image Critique & the Fall of the Berlin Wall is a magnificent encounter between visual images of the fall of the wall and the most sensitively acute intellectual theories about images; between the critical analysis of images and the critical thought that such images engender; between reflection as serious consideration of the fall of the wall and reflection as what happens when the images look back at us. Manghani crafts a novel form of image critique out of richly metaphorical writing, theoretical depths and carefully orchestrated images. He performs in a blend of scholarly and personal prose an edifying experience of history, visual culture and criticism. The brilliant flash of lightning that inspires this book makes music of the long roll of thunder heard in these inspiring pages. - Jon Simons, Indiana University