ARTMargins Special Issue Challenges Postcolonialism's Presumed Obsolescence in Art History

A special issue of ARTMargins argues that postcolonial thought remains vital in art history, challenging claims that it has been superseded by global and decolonial paradigms. The introductory essay by Joshua I. Cohen, Foad Torshizi, and Vazira Zamindar traces how these three frameworks have intersected with art historical scholarship over five decades. Published on June 26, 2023, in Volume 12, Issue 2, the issue examines the tendency to dismiss postcolonialism as outdated. The authors contend that postcolonial inquiry has generated critical interventions since the 1970s and 1980s, offering nuanced ways to explore colonial-era artistic practices and interrogate art history as a colonial knowledge form. They maintain that postcolonialism continues to invigorate debates about the discipline's objects, methods, and boundaries, resisting its presumed obsolescence following the global turn. The essay appears on pages 3-17 with DOI 10.1162/artm_e_00346, available through MIT Press with full access. This publication seeks to disaggregate postcolonial, global, and decolonial terms, showing they are not synonymous despite sometimes being conflated as a unified decolonizing action against Eurocentric foundations.