Allegory as historical method, or the similarities between Amsterdam and Albania: Reading Simon Gikandi’s Slavery and the Culture of Taste

Abstract

This essay critically reads Simon Gikandi’s Slavery and the Culture of Taste (2011) and poses questions about Gikandi’s method of reading allegorically. By closely analyzing his discussion of the painting Two Africans by Rembrandt van Rijn in particular, and scrutinizing how Gikandi sometimes relies on historical and art-historical contextualization and at other moments does not, I argue that his interpretations of the past are up for debate.