Looking for America : the visual production of nation and people

Format:

Book

Language:

English

Imprint:

Malden, MA : Blackwell, 2005

Subject:

United States - Civilization - 20th century
Visual communication - Social aspects - United States - History - 20th century
Arts and society - United States - History - 20th century
National characteristics, American
United States - Social conditions - 20th century

Contributor:

Cameron, Ardis

ISBN:

9781405114653, 1405114657, 9781405114660, and 1405114665

Description:

xiv, 390 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Bibliographic Note:

Includes bibliographical references and index

Contents:

Sleuthing towards America : visual detection in everyday life / Ardis Cameron -- Cartes de visite portrait photographs and the culture of class formation / Andrea L. Volpe -- Photographing the "American negro" : nation, race, and photography at the Paris Exposition of 1900 / Shawn Michelle Smith -- Techniques of the imaginary nation : engendering family photography / Laura Wexler -- Private eyes, public women : images of class and sex in the urban South, Atlanta, Georgia, 1913-1915 / Jacquelyn Dowd Hall -- Margaret Bourke-White's red coat ; or, Slumming in the thirties / Paula Rabinowitz -- "The kind of people who make good Americans" : nationalism and life's family ideal / Wendy Kozol -- Visual culture and working-class community : photography and the organizing of the steelworkers' union in Chicago / Larry Peterson -- Sit-coms and suburbs : positioning the 1950s homemaker / Mary Beth Haralovich -- The zoot-suit and style warfare / Stuart Cosgrove -- Looking Jewish, seeing Jews / Matthew Frye Jacobson -- The photograph as an intersection of gazes / Catherine A. Lutz and Jane L. Collins -- When strangers bring cameras : the poetics and politics of othered places / Ardis Cameron

Summary:

"This collection explores the role of the "visual" in shaping American identity. Introducing students to the visual in all its complexity and variety on the American scene - the language of signs; the historical construction and meaning of "types;" and the uses and politics of photography, film, bodily display, and documentaries - the volume underscores the productivity of the visual in thinking about race, gender, ethnicity, sexuality, and regionality. It clearly demonstrates that the ways in which people see and are seen determine who they are and how they see themselves as citizens and Americans." "An editorial introduction places the articles within a narrative structure that tells a collective tale of how this experiment called "America" took on visual shape and meaning. Suggested readings, a primer on how to "read" an image, and a listing of visual archives and collections complete the volume, making this an indispensable text for those in American studies and related fields."-- Jacket

Collection:

BGC Monograph Stacks

Call Number:

E169.1 .L8194 2005

Available

c.1