Eugene Atget, photographer of Paris
Atget’s empty streets create an image of Paris hovering between reality and imagination.
Imag(in)ing Paris for Posterity
Some of you may know that my academic background is in the history of photography in Paris. My research was recently published and you can read it here!
Walter Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction
In my experience, the most discussed aspect of this essay is the discussion of the aura, and what it means to speak about works of art losing their aura. This sounds like it would be a negative thing – as if the loss of aura somehow dilutes the worth of the original...
Barthes on the Great Family of Man
This myth of the human ‘condition’ rests on a very old mystification, which always consists in placing Nature at the bottom of History. Barthes’s essay serves as a critique of Steichen’s “Family of Man” exhibition on the grounds of naturalizing elements of life under...
In Our Glory
All colonized and subjugated people who, by way of resistance, create an oppositional subculture within the framework of domination, recognize that the field of representation [. . .] is a site of ongoing struggle. bell hooks’s essay examines the importance of family...
The Reality Effect and Photography as Index or Trace
The reality effect refers to the use of extreme detail to create an image (whether written, spoken, or made visual) that attests to an eye-witness account, and by extension, that what is being described is a truthful rendition. It is a tactic that may be used to...
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