Photography, History, Difference

Description

Over the past decade, historical studies of photography have embraced a variety of cultural and disciplinary approaches to the medium, while shedding light on non-Western, vernacular, and “other” photographic practices outside the Euro-American canon. Photography, History, Difference brings together an international group of scholars to reflect on contemporary efforts to take a different approach to photography and its histories. What are the benefits and challenges of writing a consolidated, global history of photography? How do they compare with those of producing more circumscribed regional or thematic histories? In what ways does the recent emphasis on geographic and national specificity encourage or exclude attention to other forms of difference, such as race, class, gender, and sexuality? Do studies of “other” photographies ultimately necessitate the adoption of nontraditional methodologies, or are there contexts in which such differentiation can be intellectually unproductive and politically suspect? The contributors to the volume explore these and other questions through historical case studies; interpretive surveys of recent historiography, criticism, and museum practices; and creative proposals to rethink the connections between photography, history, and difference. A thought-provoking collection of essays that represents new ways of thinking about photography and its histories. It will appeal to a broad readership among those interested in art history, visual culture, media studies, and social history. Cover Title Page Contents Acknowledgments Introduction | Questions of Difference by Tanya Sheehan ONE | A “Geographic Fact”: Photography, History, and Ireland by Justin Carville TWO | Richard Harrington’s Guide: Universality and Locality in a Canadian Photographic Document by Martha Langford THREE | Royal Photographs in Qajar Iran: Writing the History of Photography between Persian Miniature Painting and Western Technology by Mirjam Brusius FOUR | Toward an Itinerant History of Photography: The Case of Lalla Essaydi by Andrés Mario Zervigón FIVE | “Last Seen Alone on the Prairie”: Migration, Photography, and the Invisibility of Women by Sigrid Lien SEVEN | Beyond the “Savage Slot”: Ethnography and the National Identity Photograph by Karen Strassler EIGHT | Agency and Authorship in Australian Photo Histories by Catherine De Lorenzo NINE | Other People’s (Hi)stories: Bringing Public-Generated Photography into the Contemporary Art Museum by Areti Galani and Alexandra Moschovi TEN | Intimate Conflicts: Foregrounding the Radical Politics of Family Photographs by Gil Pasternak Selected Bibliography Index About the Contributors