Full Description
There is little dispute that photography is a material practice, and that the photograph itself is ineluctably material. And yet matter, material, and materiality have proven to be remarkably elusive terms of inquiry, frequently producing studies that are disparate in scope, sharing seemingly little common ground. Although the wide methodological range of materialist study can be dizzying, it is this book's contention that that multiplicity is also the field's greatest asset, keeping materialist inquiry enduringly vibrant--provided that varying methods are in close enough proximity to converse. Photography's Materialities orchestrates one such conversation. Juxtaposing the insights of theorists like Lacan, Benjamin, and Latour beside close studies of crime, spirit, and composite photography, among others, this collection aims for a productive synergy, one capacious enough to span transatlantic spaces over the long nineteenth century.
Contributors: Kris Belden-Adams (University of Mississippi), Maura Coughlin (Bryant University), David LaRocca (independent scholar), Jacob W. Lewis (University of Rochester), Mary Marchand (Goucher College), Zachary Tavlin (Art Institute of Chicago), Christa Holm Vogelius (University of Copenhagen)
Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction:Photography's Materialities
Geoff Bender and Rasmus R. Simonsen
Section I: The Materialities of Process and Product
Silver Salts: Realism and Materiality in a French photograph c.1900
Maura Coughlin
Early Photogravure & the Material Unconscious
Jacob W. Lewis
Section II: Material Remediations
Every Contact Leaves a Trace: Edith Wharton and the Forensic Imagination
Mary Marchand
Structuring Desire in Thomas Eakins's Painting and Photography
Rasmus R. Simonsen
The Multilingualism of Jacob Riis's Imagetext
Christa Holm Vogelius
Section III: Human-Posthuman Materialities
Composita, the "Mascot" of the Class of 1886: A (Fictional) Picture of "Real" Victorian-era College Sisterhood and Social-Caste Expectations
Kris Belden-Adams
"A Single Multiple Image": The Visual Rhetoric of An Ethiopian Chief
Geoff Bender
Spirit Photography & Rogue Objects
Zachary Tavlin
Object Lessons: What Cyanotypes Teach Us About Digital Media
David LaRocca
Afterword
Rasmus R. Simonsen and Geoff Bender
Gallery with Color Plates
Contributors
Index
