visual culture

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• SOURCE: Sapiens
  8/23/2022
  

  Anthropologists: Heartland Imagery Distorts History of Midwest, Elevates Whites as Real Americans

  Heartland imagery depends on images of white individuals and families obscure the forces of migration and industrialization that shaped the region and reinforce an image of rural whites as ideal citizens, argue two anthropologists. 

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• SOURCE: The Conversation
  4/7/2022
  

  "Is It Cake?" is Brain Candy for Pandemic-Weary, but also Part of Long History of Visual Illusion

  by Maggie Cao

  "At a time when we often don’t know if what we encounter on our screens can be trusted, it feels good to alleviate those anxieties with a show in which the only consequence of being fooled is cutting into a shoe that we assumed was a cake."

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• SOURCE: Mother Jones
  6/10/2021
  

  How the George Floyd Uprising Was Framed for White Eyes

  Some of the most iconic news photographs of the Civil Rights Movement told a particular story to white liberals – that Black protesters were passive victims needing their help, instead of actively fighting for freedom. Those photos today help define the mainstream limits of "acceptable" protest. 

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• SOURCE: Made By History at The Washington Post
  12/1/2020
  

  The Struggle to Document COVID-19 for Future Generations

  by Pamela Ballinger

  Images of suffering have been powerful spurs to humanitarian action in history, but the process has the potential to reinforce messages of fault, blame, and separation. Assembling a visual archive of the age of COVID must avoid those traps to be useful in the future. 

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• SOURCE: Society for U.S. Intellectual History
  9/9/2020
  

  The Interdisciplinarity and Influence of Alan Trachtenberg

  by Jennifer Giuliano and Lauren Tilton

  "The need to interrogate, understand, and even disrupt how we see images is a part of Trachtenberg’s enduring legacy that becomes more important as researchers are distanced from physical archives." The work of Alan Trachtenberg in developing historical methodologies for understanding images is crucial for historians' ability to speak to current affairs.

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• SOURCE: Yale News
  8/18/2020
  

  Alan Trachtenberg, Pioneered New Ways of Understanding American Culture

  Trachtenberg is best known as one of the most distinguished and authoritative interpreters of what photographers have shown about history through the camera lens.