Books Made Me
by Elizabeth Edwards
Issue 67 Summer 2011
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Elizabeth Edwards
Professor, Raw Histories (2001)
Vision Race and Modernity, Deborah Poole (1997) / Performances, Greg Dening (1996) / Spectral Evidence: The Photography of Trauma, Ulrich Baer (2002)
Deborah Poole’s Vision Race and Modernity is now quite old and much elaborated upon. Nevertheless, her model of visual economy opened a range of possibilities through which to understand photographic meaning – not merely in the image itself but in patterns of production, exchange, collection, possession, institutionalization, materiality and reproduction. Australian historian Greg Dening’s writing is about the fluidity and performativity of history, and the complex ways in which history is imagined. This has influenced my thinking on many things, from colonial photography to ‘pose’, because it offers new historiographical possibilities applicable to photography. If I have to chose one it is the late collection of essays Performances. More recently I have found Ulrich Baer’s Spectral Evidence: Photography and Trauma good to think with, especially the ways in which he challenges assumptions about time, presence and the inscription of the experienced moment. It enables a reclaiming of a form of critical realism.
Other articles by Elizabeth Edwards:
Other articles on photography from the 'Publishing' category ▸