The seal of the Massachusetts Bay Colony is filled with the paradoxes and tensions that are required to define and depict modernity: Latin encircling King James English, the indigenous name Massachusetts subsumed by Nova Anglia, and the Native man always simultaneously noble and savage, inviting and threatening.

Julian Sieber on colonial modernity

The Massachusetts Bay Colony Seal is in and of itself a rather compact genealogy of modernity. The image is a discursive moment that actively constructs a sense of what it means to be modern, and it neatly highlights several important phenomena that cohere to underpin Western colonial modernity: seals/logos, the Bible, and the construction of “the Indian.”

Julian Sieber on colonial modernity

Carlos Bulosan’s humanist vision of freedom was articulated through his deep attention to the material conditions of Filipino life.

Colton Bernasol’s retrieval of a giant of American letters

Nutrition becomes a realm subject to technocratic achievement and colonial control. In this way, the British state enters the domestic realm of colonized peoples.

Devin Creed on Britian’s development of nutritional colonization