Photography and photographs Books

Book SynopsisThis book collects original research essays to explore the diverse uses of photographs and photography in oral history, from the use of photos as memory triggers to their deployment in the telling of life stories. The book's contributors include both oral historians and photography scholars and critics.Trade Review'This international selection of essays would be a natural fit for graduate courses in oral history as well as memory studies. The introduction includes an excellent review of the historiography while suggesting ways oral historians can 'best use photographs in their work,' and understand the 'interviewee's often perplexing responses to photographs.'' - Sound Historian 'The sensitive use of photographs by these oral historians has drawn fascinating, sometimes spellbinding, tales from both the tellers and the listeners. This is an important collection that will instruct and inspire future research at the crossroads of photography, orality, memory, and history.' Martha Langford, author of Suspended Conversations: The Afterlife of Memory in Photographic Albums and Scissors, Paper, Stone: Expressions of Memory in Contemporary Photographic Art 'An evocative, much-needed international collection exploring the fascinating intersection between the oral and visual. Twelve pointed and diverse case studies, framed by an extensive introductory essay, map a surprisingly rich terrain. One axis involves reflections on photo-elicitation as a helpful but far-from-straightforward interview technique. Another involves issues of memory and interpretation in oral history, issues complicated in provocative ways by the counterpoint with photographic evidence (and vice versa). A third dimension, perhaps the most novel, demonstrates how enriched documentary and interactive possibilities for family, community, and public discourse can be unfolded through leveraging the productive tension between voice and eye, from representation to reception.' Michael Frisch, co-author, with photographer Milton Rogovin, of Portraits in Steel 'This is a terrific book. The collection addresses key issues in the correlation of the visual and verbal that are particularly salient as digital communication challenges the boundaries of many disciplines, the nature of history and oral history itself, and the possibilities for engaged oral history or advocacy and interpretive action. The book as a whole is remarkably well-written. It has the analytical grain and authorial modesty I have come to admire in the best oral history work. This collection will certainly complement and extend the emerging literatures on visual study, visual culture, new documentary, and 'sensory' ethnography. Accordingly, I expect it will significantly enhance the stature and reach of oral history.' - Della Pollock, professor of Performance and Cultural Studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel HillTable of ContentsMary Brockmeyer's Wedding Picture: Exploring the Intersection of Photographs and Oral History Interviews; A.Freund & A.Thiessen 'When I was a Girl . . .': Women Talking About their Girlhood Photo Collections; P.Tinkler Imaging Family Memories: My Mum, Her Photographs, Our Memories; J.Wilton Remembering, Forgetting and Feeling with Photographs; L.Mannik Listening to Pictures: Photographs and Oral History among Inuit Youths and Elders; C.Payne Using Press Photographs in the Construction of Political Life Stories; M.Schiebel & Y.Robel Piercing the Punctum: Oral History and the 'Prick' of Photography; K.M.Ryan Family Photographs as Traces of Americanization; M.Thompson Family Photographs and Migrant Memories: Representing Women's Lives; A.Thomson From Witness to Participant: Making Subversive Documentary; A.Bersch & L.Grant Photographs from the Shoebox; J.E.Marles Committed Eye: Photographs, Oral Sources, and Historical Narrative; A.M.Mauad

Read more less