In the last two decades, amid the global spread of smartphones, state killings of civilians have increasingly been captured on the cameras of both bystanders and police. Screen Shots: State Violence on Camera in Israel and Palestine (Stanford UP, 2021) studies this phenomenon from the vantage point of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories. Here, cameras have proliferated as political tools in the hands of a broad range of actors and institutions, including Palestinian activists, Israeli soldiers, Jewish settlers, and human rights workers. All trained their lens on Israeli state violence, propelled by a shared dream: that advances in digital photography-closer, sharper, faster-would advance their respective political agendas. Most would be let down. Drawing on ethnographic work, Rebecca L. Stein chronicles Palestinian video-activists seeking justice, Israeli soldiers laboring to perfect the military's image, and Zionist conspiracy theorists accusing Palestinians of "playing dead." Writing against techno-optimism, Stein investigates what camera dreams and disillusionment across these political divides reveal about the Israeli and Palestinian colonial present, and the shifting terms of power and struggle in the smartphone age. Mathew Gagné in an independent writer, scholar, and educator, currently teaching in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Toronto Mississauga. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/photography

New Books in Photography

Rebecca L. Stein, "Screen Shots: State Violence on Camera in Israel and Palestine" (Stanford UP, 2021)

Today I talk to Mark Beehre about his new book, A Queer Existence, published by Massey University Press New Zealand 2021. A Queer Existence is a major documentary project that uses photographic portraiture and oral history to record the life experiences of a group of twenty-seven gay men born since the passing of the Homosexual Law Reform Act in 1986. In New Zealand, discrimination in work was outlawed in 1993, same-sex relationships were granted legal recognition in 2005, and marriage equality followed in 2013. In 2018 Parliament apologised to those whose lives had been blighted by criminal prosecution for expressing their sexuality. As a result, these men have life experiences very different to earlier generations of gay New Zealand men. Even so, gay men growing up today may continue to feel stigmatised, and for many coming out is still a major hurdle. Candid, powerful and affecting, the first-person narratives of A Queer Existence form a valuable and unique insight into how gay men continue to have to step out of the mainstream and face their own challenges as they forge their queer identities. Mark Beehre initially trained as a specialist physician and worked for several years in medical practice before studying photography at the Elam School of Fine Arts in Auckland and Massey University. If you want to explore the fantastic work by Mark Beehre, please visit http://www.markbeehre.co.nz/ Ed Amon is a Master of Indigenous Studies Candidate at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, a columnist at his local paper: Hibiscus Matters, and a Stand-up Comedian. His main interests are indigenous studies, politics, history, and cricket. Follow him on twitter @edamoned or email him at edamonnz@gmail.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/photography

Mark Beehre, "A Queer Existence: The Lives of Young Gay Men in Aotearoa New Zealand" (Massey University, 2021)

Photography emerged in the 1840s in the United States, and it became a visual medium that documents the harsh realities of enslavement. Similarly, the photography culture grew during the Civil War, and it became an important material that archived this unprecedented war. Deborah Willis's The Black Civil War Soldier: A Visual History of Conflict and Citizenship (New York University Press, 2021) contains rarely seen letters and diary notes from Black men and women and photographs of Black soldiers who fought and died in this war. These ninety-nine images reshape African American narratives. The Black Civil War Soldier offers an opportunity to experience the war through their perspectives. N'Kosi Oates is a Ph.D. candidate in Africana Studies at Brown University. Find him on Twitter at NKosiOates. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/photography

Deborah Willis, "The Black Civil War Soldier: A Visual History of Conflict and Citizenship" (NYU Press, 2021)

The legendary Magnum photo agency has long been associated with heroic lone wolf male photographers such as Frank Capa and Henri Cartier-Bresson, roaming the world in search of the “decisive moment” – the perfect shot that captured the essence of a major news story. Nadya Bair’s highly original book The Decisive Network: Magnum Photos and the Postwar Image Market (University of California Press 2020) argues that this idealized portrayal of Magnum occludes the larger networks within which these photographers operated, including the crucial roles performed by often female office staff, by picture editors and corporate clients. She sets out to show that right from the outset, Magnum was also a business operation, one that pioneered modern ideas of branding borrowed from advertising agencies and commercial partners. Drawing on extensive archival work and including numerous images of photo page spreads, The Decisive Network presents Magnum in a novel and distinctive light, as the framer of new global imaginaries that reflected the evolution of post-war capitalism. Nadya Bair is an assistant professor of art history at Hamilton College For digital explorations of the Magnum network, see Nadya’s fascinating website. ﻿Duncan McCargo is an eclectic, internationalist political scientist and literature buff: his day job is directing the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies at the University of Copenhagen. Learn more here, here, here, and here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/photography

Nadya Bair, "The Decisive Network: Magnum Photos and the Postwar Image Market" (U California Press, 2020)

The People's Porn: A History of Handmade Pornography in America (Reaktion Books, 2020) is a beautifully written and groundbreaking historical study of homemade, handmade and amateur pornographic artifacts. Covering everything from erotic scrimshaw to amateur videos on the web, Lisa Sigel offers a fascinating account of what ordinary people thought about sexuality and desire. This hidden chapter of American sexual history is not only a much-needed counterbalance to ahistorical arguments which dominate pornography today, it’s also a reminder of humanity’s prodigious tendency to create and communicate sexual desires. At times, the images and objects presented in this book might appear shocking, crude, grotesque, problematic, confrontational, unrestrained, unruly; but in the end they are deeply human. Zachary Lowell holds an MA in global studies from Humboldts Universtität zu Berlin. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/photography

Lisa Z. Sigel, "The People's Porn: A History of Handmade Pornography in America" (Reaktion Books, 2020)

Today I talked to Jessica Helfand about her new book Face: A Visual Odyssey (MIT Press, 2019) Helfand is a designer, artist, and author. She’s taught at Yale University for more than 20 years, cofounded Design Observer, and has had additional roles at a variety of institutions ranging from the American Academy in Rome to the California Institute of Technology. We’ve always visited churches and museums to gaze at faces. So what’s now changed? Today, about two billion images get uploaded daily to social media – of which nearly 100 million are estimated to be selfies. As Daniel Boorstin presaged in his seminal 1962 book The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America, we’ve become consumed as a culture by our own self-reflections. In this episode, Helfand guides listeners through everything from caricatures (i.e., loaded portraits), to Facebook and selfie-sticks hitting the mainstream in 2006, to how now every third photograph taken by people from 18 to 24 years of age is of themselves. From the question of who’s behind the camera to othering as part of biased behavior, this episode has it all as, indeed, do faces as an enduring centerpiece to how we judge ourselves and others. Dan Hill, PhD, is the author of eight books and leads Sensory Logic, Inc. (https://www.sensorylogic.com). To check out his related “Dan Hill’s EQ Spotlight” blog, visit https://emotionswizard.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/photography

Jessica Helfand, "Face: A Visual Odyssey" (MIT Press, 2019)

What do startling photographic images of state violence from events such as the 6 October 1976 massacre at Thammasat University tell us about the nature of human rights in Thailand? In conversation with NIAS Director Duncan McCargo, Karin Zackari of Lund University discusses some of the key themes that emerge from her doctoral thesis, the first study to view egregious episodes of human rights violations in Thailand through a photographic lens. Karin talks about some of the iconic images she studied, the challenges of tracking down archival sources, and how a recent online project is now making some of these important materials more accessible (see https://doct6.com/). Karin Zackari defended her PhD thesis entitled Framing the Subject: Human Rights and Photography in Contemporary Thai History at Lund University in September 2020. You can download her thesis here. The Nordic Asia Podcast is a collaboration sharing expertise on Asia across the Nordic region, brought to you by the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies (NIAS) based at the University of Copenhagen, along with our academic partners: the Centre for East Asian Studies at the University of Turku, Asianettverket at the University of Oslo, and the Stockholm Centre for Global Asia at Stockholm University. We aim to produce timely, topical and well-edited discussions of new research and developments about Asia. About NIAS: www.nias.ku.dk Transcripts of the Nordic Asia Podcasts: http://www.nias.ku.dk/nordic-asia-podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/photography

Photography and Human Rights in Thailand: A Discussion with Karin Zackari

Defining the Chief Executive via flash powder and selfie sticks. In this episode, Dr. Lee M. Pierce (they & she) interviews Dr. Cara A. Finnegan about Photographic Presidents: Making History from Daguerreotype to Digital (University of Illinois Press, 2021). Lincoln's somber portraits. Lyndon Johnson's swearing in. George W. Bush's reaction to learning about the 9/11 attacks. Photography plays an indelible role in how we remember and define American presidents. Throughout history, presidents have actively participated in all aspects of photography, not only by sitting for photos but by taking and consuming them. Cara A. Finnegan ventures from a newly-discovered daguerreotype of John Quincy Adams to Barack Obama's selfies to tell the stories of how presidents have participated in the medium's transformative moments. As she shows, technological developments not only changed photography, but introduced new visual values that influence how we judge an image. At the same time, presidential photographs--as representations of leaders who symbolized the nation--sparked public debate on these values and their implications. An original journey through political history, Photographic Presidents reveals the intertwined evolution of an American institution and a medium that continues to define it. Have questions or comments? Connect with your host, Dr. Lee M. Pierce, on social media and Gmail @rhetoriclee or with guest author, Dr. Cara Finnegan on Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/photography

Cara A. Finnegan, "Photographic Presidents: Making History from Daguerreotype to Digital" (U Illinois Press, 2021)

Chemistry is not just about microscopic atoms doing inscrutable things; it is the process that makes flowers and galaxies. We rely on it for bread-baking, vegetable-growing, and producing the materials of daily life. In stunning images and illuminating text, this book captures chemistry as it unfolds. Using such techniques as microphotography, time-lapse photography, and infrared thermal imaging, The Beauty of Chemistry: Art, Wonder, and Science (MIT Press, 2021) shows us how chemistry underpins the formation of snowflakes, the science of champagne, the colors of flowers, and other wonders of nature and technology. We see the marvelous configurations of chemical gardens; the amazing transformations of evaporation, distillation, and precipitation; heat made visible; and more. Galina Limorenko is a doctoral candidate in Neuroscience with a focus on biochemistry and molecular biology of neurodegenerative diseases at EPFL in Switzerland. To discuss and propose the book for an interview you can reach her at galina.limorenko@epfl.ch. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/photography

Philip Ball, "The Beauty of Chemistry: Art, Wonder, and Science" (MIT Press, 2021)

On the evening of May 31, 1921, thousands of white Oklahomans assaulted the Greenwood District of the city of Tulsa. In what would come to be known as the Tulsa Race Massacre, dozens of Black residents were killed and thousands more displaced as armed whites looted their homes and businesses before burning them to the ground. Karlos K. Hill’s The 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre: A Photographic History (University of Oklahoma Press, 2021) provides a visual record of the attack upon the community and the destruction it wrought upon the neighborhood, along with pictures of the aftermath and the testimony of the survivors.  As Hill’s images reveal, Greenwood had established itself as the most prosperous Black community in the United States prior to the massacre. This prosperity was a source of resentment for many whites, and fueled much of the anger reflected in the massacre. Yet Hill’s photos also reveal the resilience of a community, as in the aftermath of the devastation the residents of Greenwood rallied to rebuild much of what had been destroyed, serving as a foundation for further prosperity in the decades that followed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/photography

Karlos K. Hill, "The 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre: A Photographic History" (U Oklahoma Press, 2021)

What does it mean to tie your cloth to that of another person, as in the Ghanaian tradition, or to be in full dress? How is fashion photography in a colonial and decolonial context more than just a "look" but in fact a looking and a looking at? Join author Catherine McKinley (she/her) and host Lee M. Pierce (they) for a discussion of these provocative questions in the context of fashion photography by and about pan-African women from the 1870s to the 1970s. Most of us grew up with images of African women that were purely anthropological—bright displays of exotica where the deeper personhood seemed tucked away. Or they were chronicles of war and poverty—“poverty porn.” But now, curator Catherine E. McKinley draws on her extensive collection of historical and contemporary photos, spanning the 150-year arc of photography on the continent, to tell a different story of African women: how deeply cosmopolitan and modern they are in their style; how they were able to reclaim the tools of the colonial oppression that threatened their selfhood and livelihoods.  Featuring works by celebrated African masters, African studios of local legend, and anonymous artists, The African Lookbook: A Visual History of 100 Years of African Womanhood (Bloomsbury, 2021) captures the dignity, playfulness, austerity, grandeur, and fantasy-making of African women across centuries. McKinley also features photos by Europeans—most starkly, striking nudes—revealing the relationships between white men and the black female sitters where, at best, a grave power imbalance lies. It’s a bittersweet truth that when there is exploitation there can also be profound resistance expressed in unexpected ways—even if it’s only in gazing back. These photos tell the story of how the sewing machine and the camera became powerful tools for women’s self-expression, revealing a truly glorious display of everyday beauty. Discussion welcome! Connect with author Catherine McKinley on Instagram @the_african_lookbook and the_mckinley_collection and host Lee M. Pierce on Gmail, Instagram and Twitter @rhetoriclee. Special thanks to Oslo-based Norwegian-Nigerian artist Frida Orupado (nemieppeba) for contributing a series of collages to the work to deepen the way in which we engage the original photos and their histories.  If you enjoyed this interview you may also enjoy New Books Network interviews with Anne Cheng about Second Skin: Josephine Baker and the Modern Surface and Zakiyyah Iman Jackson about Becoming Human: Matter and Meaning in an Antiblack World. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/photography

Catherine E. McKinley, "The African Lookbook: A Visual History of 100 Years of African Womanhood" (Bloomsbury, 2021)

This book began as a bet between a father and son: could Richard White, Professor Emeritus at Stanford University and renowned historian of the American West, tell a complete history of California through photographs taken by his son, the photographer Jesse Amble White? As he tells it, no - Richard White lost that bet to Jesse. But the resulting book they created together, California Exposures: Envisioning Myth and History (Norton, 2020), is nonetheless an engrossing read. Taking Jesse's photographs as touchstones for the meeting places between myth and history, White tracks the history of California through the moment of Sir Francis Drake's landing in the 16th century (though where exactly that landing took place is a matter of some debate), all the way to the water crises engulfing the state now in the early 21st century. Along the way, Richard and Jesse both show and tell stories of Indigenous California, of settlement and agriculture, and of research libraries blocking entry to sensitive material. If California history is American history in microcosm, California Exposures argues that history needs to be seen to be believed. Dr. Stephen R. Hausmann is an assistant professor of history at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/photography

Richard White, "California Exposures: Envisioning Myth and History" (Norton, 2020)

In Visual Worlds: Looking, Images, Visual Disciplines (Oxford University Press, 2020), James Elkins and Erna Fiorentini provide a full introduction to the visual world across all the fields that theorize it. In contrast with typical visual culture texts, their book looks beyond the arts, taking a comparative approach that considers a number of fields, including art history and theory but also epistemology, ontology, vision science, neurology, cognitive psychology, law, advertising, medicine, warfare, and more. Intended for first-year university students from diverse backgrounds, Visual Worlds presents a broad array of examples and covers a wide range of topics in short, thematic chapters which offer instructors great flexibility. By focusing on different modes of looking, the book shows students how seeing can change depending on the object that is seen and on its interpretation by an individual. Allison Leigh is Assistant Professor of Art History and the SLEMCO/LEQSF Regents Endowed Professor in Art & Architecture at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Her research explores masculinity in European and Russian art of the eighteenth through the early twentieth centuries. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/photography

James Elkins and Erna Fiorentini, "Visual Worlds: Looking, Images, Visual Disciplines" (Oxford UP, 2020)

When Camille Melissa emigrated to the UK from Australia via Paris and entered the sex industry in 2005, she always knew that photography would play a crucial role as she navigated the complex structures – both visible and invisible – of this misrepresented community. The rhetoric surrounding sex work is often frustratingly one-dimensional in mainstream media; those who enter the industry are somehow ‘damaged’, labourers of the patriarchy, powerless individuals who need saving from themselves. Sex work activists continue to challenge the victim narrative forced upon them, across politics, film and art. Camille is one such activist. She started her online platform Whoretography as a way of examining the intersection of images, technologies, society and the sex workers’ rights movement. As ‘a visual activist platform and a sex work positive publishing house’, Whoretography seeks to answer two fundamental questions: Is it possible to reclaim the word ‘whore’ through creative practice as research? What role does photography play in contemporary online sexual consumption? “The easy availability of information on the internet has revolutionised the industry’s marketing techniques and its verbal and visual vocabulary,” Camille says, “Digital photographs are now fundamental to the transaction of sex. Photography needs to form a greater part of the sex work discussion; I have learned how negatively impactful photography can be in presenting sex workers as different from and less than other people.” Camille's Twitter handle is @Whoretography and her website with more information about her ebooks is https://thephotographictheoris... and will be online from May Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/photography

Camille Melissa, "Whoretography" (Apple Books, 2017)

Interviews with Photographers and Scholars of Photography about their New Books

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New Books in Photography

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