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Marga Altena is a historian of visual culture working as a researcher, teacher and publicist.

 

After studying art history, she specialized in the media representation of social issues in the past and the present.

 

She carried out her PhD thesis, Visuele strategieën. Foto’s en films van fabrieksarbeidsters in Nederland (1890-1919)/Visual Strategies: Photos and Films of Female Factory Workers in the Netherlands (1890-1919), at the Institute for Gender Studies at Radboud University Nijmegen.

 

Marga prefers to work in interdisciplinary research projects. Participating in the Refiguring Death Rites program, also at  Radboud University Nijmegen, she investigated images of death in films, television shows and weblogs.

 

Next, she studied the imagery of race and racism in The Netherlands. In her book A True History Full of Romance: Mixed Marriages and Ethnic Identity in Dutch Art, News Media, and Popular Culture (1883-1955) she combined archival data, oral history, fieldwork and historiography.

 

Her latest research project is on the history and perception of African American soldiers in WWII in the Netherlands, resulting in the graphic novel Franklin with art work by Brian Elstak and lay-out by Lyanne Tonk, and in the traveling exhibition Black Liberators.

 

Marga has been teaching visual culture, gender history, and cultural theory at the Free University Amsterdam, Radboud University Nijmegen, and University of Amsterdam.

 

 

Fields of interest

 

imagery in historical research; media and agency;

ethnicity and raciality in popular culture; death and identity in traditional and new media

 

Contact

 

email: MargaAltena@hotmail.com

 

webpage: www.MargaAltena.nl