Real colors and cultures

This inteediciplinary anthology examines color as a phenomenon that bridges perception, culture, and material reality. Drawing on philosophy, cognitive science, art history, literature, and cultural studies, the volume challenges Western-centric assumptions about color universality while exploring how chromatic experience is shaped by linguistic, historical, and embodied contexts.

Contributions range from theoretical investigations-critiquing Newtonian color science and the CIE standard observer system for their cultural biases, and examining Chinese, Persian, and European color ontologies-to analyses of color symbolism in medieval iconography, Rembrandt’s painting, Iranian architecture, and contemporary cinema. The collection addresses color across diverse media and practices: slave narratives and Holocaust film; Goethe’s color theory and Paracelsian alchemy;  plasmonic nanotechnology and textile dyeing heritage; rap music and haute couture.

Through its comparative, intercultural framework, the volume demonstrates that color is neither purely subjective nor objectively fixed, but emerges through dynamic interactions between biological perception, cultural categorization, and technological mediation. The editors emphasize color as a mode of organizing knowledge, staging desire, and remembering that perception is always situated-ethically, politically, and historically.