NEW FORMATIONS MANAGING EDITOR: James Donald REVIEWS EDITOR: Homi Bhabha CO-EDITORS: for this issue: Tony Davies and Jenny Taylor EDITORIAL BOARD: Victor Burgin Tony Davies Jonathan Dollimore Simon Frith Jim Grealy Stuart Hall Dick Hebdige Cora Kaplan Gregor McLennan Graham Murdock Denise Riley Jenny Taylor Valerie Walkerdine Nancy Wood OVERSEAS EDITORS: Ien Ang Tony Bennett Jody Berland Hazel Carby Iain Chambers Joan Copjec Lidia Curti Joel Fineman Ian Hunter Noel King Colin Mercer Edward Said Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak John Tagg DESIGN: Susan Hilsdon COVER DESIGN: Robert Carter COVER: Black Narcissus (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, 1947) New Formations is published three times a year by Methuen & Co. Ltd., 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P4EE SUBSCRIPTIONS AND ADVERTISEMENT enquiries should be addressed to David Polley, Methuen & Co. Ltd., at the address given above. Annual subscriptions (i.e. 3 issues) to New Formations are: UK and overseas: Institutions 35, Individuals 18. North America: Institutions $55, Individuals $38. Single copies 6.95/$i6 CONTRIBUTIONS AND CORRESPONDENCE should be sent to The Managing Editor, New Formations, 41B Hornsey Lane Gardens, London N6 5NY Prospective writers are encouraged to contact the editors to discuss their ideas and to obtain a copy of our style sheet. Manuscripts should be sent in triplicate. They will not be returned unless a stamped, self-addressed envelope is enclosed. Contributors should note that the editorial board cannot take responsibility for any manuscript submitted to New Formations. BOOKS FOR REVIEW should be sent to The Reviews Editor, New Formations, 20 Highbury Crescent, London N5 irx The collection as a whole Methuen & Co. Ltd.1987 Individual articles the authors 1987 No article may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system without the permission in writing of the publisher, editor or author. ISSN ISBN 0950-2378 041604962 1 Typeset by Hope Services, Abingdon, Oxon. Printed at the University Press, Cambridge.
NUMBER I SPRING 1987 Introduction 3 Peter Wollen Fashion/orientalism/the body 5 Denise Riley Does a sex have a history? 'Women' and feminism 35 Dick Hebdige The impossible object. Towards a sociology of the sublime 47 Laura Marcus 'Enough about you, let's talk about me' Recent autobiographical writing 77 John Tagg Should art historians know their place? 95 Franco Bianchini GLC R.I.P. Cultural policies in London, 1981-1986 103 REMEMBERING FANON Homi Bhabha 'What does the black man want?' 118 Stephan Feuchtwang Fanonian spaces 124 Barbara Harlow Narratives of resistance 131 REVIEWS Mark Cousins Socratease 137 Gregor McLennan Rescuing reason 142 Bill Schwarz Englishness and the paradox of modernity 147 Michael O'Pray Radical visionaries: Powell and Pressburger 155 Acknowledgements and Notes on contributors 160
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The editors and publishers would like to thank die following organizations for permission to reproduce extracts and illustrations: Poiret's 'Sorbet' dress (p. 90): the Board of Trustees of the Victoria and Albert Museum Bakst's decor for Scheherazade (p. 15): Union Centrale des Arts Decoratifs, Paris Matisse's Blue Nude: Memories of Biskra (p. 23): The Baltimore Museum of Art: The Cone Collection, formed by Dr. Claribel Cone and Miss Etta Cone of Baltimore, Maryland (BMA 1950.228). Copyright DACS 1987 Matisse's Odalisque etendue, pantalon turc (p. 23): Musee national d'art Moderne, Paris. Copyright DACS 1987 Matisse's The Thousand and One Nights (p. 25): Museum of Art, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh. Acquired through the generosity of the Sarah Mellon Scaife family, 71.23. Copyright DACS 1987 Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (p. 154), A Matter of Life and Death (p. 154) and Black Narcissus (cover and p. 157): Rank Organization, PLC. (Stills from the National Film Archive, London, Stills Division.) The extracts from Midsummer I and Midsummer IV from Midsummer by Derek Walcott, Copyright 1984 Derek Walcott, are quoted by permission of Faber and Faber Ltd. and Farrar, Straus & Giroux Inc. The extracts from Another Life are Copyright 1972, 1973 by Derek Walcott and are reproduced by permission of Farrar, Straus & Giroux Inc. Although every effort has been made to trace copyright holders, we apologize in advance for any unintentional omission or neglect and will be pleased to insert the appropriate acknowledgement to companies or individuals in a subsequent issue of this journal. NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS PETER WOLLEN is a film-maker, writer and teacher; he is currently working on a new film, Friendship's Death, for the BFI... DENISE RILEY has published several collections of poetry, including Marxism for Infants and No Fee with Wendy Mulford, Living a Life and Dry Air. She is author of War in the Nursery: Theories of the Child and the Mother... DICK HEBDIGE teaches at Goldsmiths' College, London, and is author of Subculture: The Meaning of Style... LAURA MARCUS teaches literature at Sussex University... JOHN TAGG teaches art history at SUNY, Binghamton and is author of The Burden of Representation... FRANCO BIANCHINI worked on local government cultural policy in Tuscany and is now completing a PhD thesis at Manchester University on the relationship between culture and Labour Party strategy... HOMI BHABHA teaches literature and literary theory at Sussex University. He is working at present on Power and Spectacle: Colonial Discourse and the English Novel and editing a collection of essays entitled Nation and Narration: Post-structuralism and the Culture of National Identity... STEPHAN FEUCHTWANG teaches sociology at City University, London and has edited and contributed to various books on Chinese economic reform... BARBARA HARLOW teaches English and comparative literature at the University of Texas in Austin; she is the author of Novels of Resistance... MARK COUSINS is the author, with Athar Hussain, of Michel Foucault... GREGOR MCLENNAN works for the Open University in Scotland; he is the author of Marxism and the Methodologies of Marxism... BILL SCHWARZ teaches cultural studies at North East London Polytechnic and is currendy writing two books on the history of the Conservative Party... MICHAEL O'PRAY organizes the Film and Video Umbrella for the Arts Council and is co-editor of the film journal Afterimage. 160