Professor of Theory of Literature Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis
Mieke Bal, a renowned cultural theorist and critic, is based at the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis (ASCA), University of Amsterdam. Her areas of interest range from biblical and classical antiquity to 17th century and contemporary art and modern literature, feminism, migratory culture, and mental illness. Her many books include Of What One Cannot Speak (2010), A Mieke Bal Reader (2006), Travelling Concepts in the Humanities (2002) and Narratology (3rd edition 2009). Mieke is also a video artist, and made a series of experimental documentaries. She made the video installation Nothing is Missing that continues to be displayed (2006-present). Her first fiction film A Long History of Madness, and exhibitions derived from it, are currently touring internationally (with Michelle Williams Gamaker). Her current video project is a series of installations, Madame B., loosely based on Flaubert’s masterpiece, also with Michelle. Occasionally she acts as an independent curator. Her co-curated group exhibition 2MOVE: Video, Art, Migration travelled to four countries.
Cultural theorist Mieke Bal discusses her writing devoted to Nalini Malani’s Shadow Plays, multi-dimensional artworks that draw from different cinematic technologies and disparate repositories of images.
A few remarks about MoMA’s research project “Contemporary and Modern Art Perspectives in a Global Age.” Mieke Bal delivered this text as a response during the yearly C-MAP seminar that took place at The Museum of Modern Art in April 2013. Entitled “Global Networks,” this two-day long meeting of members of the three geographically oriented C-MAP…
