Description
Book SynopsisTrade Review"
Savage Preservation is an eye-opening account of the mutually entangled origins of ethnography and the meanings of modern media: recorded sound, color photography, documentary film. Not only does Brian Hochman enrich his readers’ sense of
culture as a concept available to historical change, he demonstrates convincingly that North American media studies remains haunted at its core by the racial ‘science’ of earlier generations." —Lisa Gitelman, New York University
"The book’s intersection of technological development and evolutionist cultural theory make a valuable contribution to media history."—Afterimage
"Refreshing and original."—CHOICE
"Hochman crafts a compelling account of the unexpected ways in which race and new media technologies intersected during this era."—MELUS
"Hochman’s book is a clearly argued, broadly researched work with cogent case studies which should help to broaden our understanding of turn-of-the-century media and technology."—History of Anthropology Newsletter
Table of ContentsContents
Introduction: The Passamaquoddy Experiment
1. Media Evolution: Indians, Alphabets, and the Technological Measures of Man
2. Representing Plains Indian Sign Language
3. Originals and Aboriginals: Race and Writing in the Age of the Phonograph
4. Race, Empire, and the Skin of the Ethnographic Image
5. Local Colors: The Work of the Ethnographic Autochrome
Postscript: Fictions of Permanence
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index
