Photography after Photography: Gender, Genre, History
Abigail Solomon-Godeau is Professor Emerita of the Department of History of Art and Architecture at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and the author of several books, including Photography at the Dock: Essays on Photographic History, Institutions, and Practices; Male Trouble: A Crisis in Representation; Rosemary Laing; Chair à canons: Photographie, discours, féminisme; and coauthor of Birgit Jürgenssen.
Sarah Parsons is Associate Professor of Art History at York University.
Abigail Solomon-Godeau is Professor Emerita of the Department of History of Art and Architecture at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and the author of several books, including Photography at the Dock: Essays on Photographic History, Institutions, and Practices; Male Trouble: A Crisis in Representation; Rosemary Laing; Chair à canons: Photographie, discours, féminisme; and coauthor of Birgit Jürgenssen.
Sarah Parsons is Associate Professor of Art History at York University.
The Ghosts of Documentary (2012)
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Published:April 2017
In this essay, Solomon-Godeau continues her investigation of the epistemological, ethical, and political problem of documentary. She examines how changing technologies have affected truth claims in various manifestations of “documentary” photography. Such an inquiry requires distinguishing particular practices from a range of representations—journalism to social documentary—all anchored by the presumed evidentiary and indexical nature of photography. But if one steps away from the notion of documentary as a genre implying political intent and considers it as a style, as many scholars have argued, Solomon-Godeau observes that it remains alive and well (which is by no means to say that she...
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