Into the European Mirror: The Work

"Into the European Mirror, the second book from Montreal film and video producer Julian Samuel's trilogy, follows the quest of The Raft of the Medusa (Black Rose Books, 1993), further developing a discussion of Occidental modernity by exploring the connections between the emergence of national identities and the exclusion and expulsion of minorities: of 'others.'

The book explores instances of nationalism and expulsion from Damascus to London and Montreal scritinizes how Islam was demonized in the European mind; and draws a provocative line from late fifteenth century Cordoba to twentieth-century Palestine and Bosnia.

Though the times have changed, the enforcement of national identity as a single ethnic and religious identity remains cruelly the same. In addition to the transcript of Samuel's tape, and to the interviews, this book includes an examination of the mechanics of the 'video essay'.

Into the European Mirror is a work about real and imaginary frontiers, and how the one becomes the other.

This is the most polished of Julian Samuel's recent excursions into the colonial encounter the long and complex construction of Europe as an identifiable cultural body and it probes, as well, the perils of nationalism based on single identity. - Now Magazine

Aruna Antonella Handa is a singer and composer based in Toronto, Canada.

John Kipphoff is a freelance journalist.

Julian Samuel is a Canadian documentary filmmaker, writer and painter. He has produced and directed a number of films that examine the historical and contemporary relationship between the Western world, the Middle East and Asia set against larger subjects in contemporary society. A transcript and discussion of The Raft of the Medusa: Five Voices on Colonies, Nations and Histories, his first film on colonialism, was also published by Black Rose Books.

Table of Contents:
Foreword
Introduction
Transcript
Reflections on the mirror
John Kiphoff interviews Julian Samuel
Appendix A Screenings of the trilogy
Appendix B and the critics raved
Appendix C Biography of Julian Samuel
Appendix D filmography, videography & public collections
Bibliography

1997: 132 pages, bibliography, index

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-55164-056-3

Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-55164-057-0

eBook ISBN: 978-155164-530-8