In this Book
- The Gift of the Face: Portraiture and Time in Edward S. Curtis's The North American Indian
- Book
- 2014
- Published by: The University of North Carolina Press
summary
Edward S. Curtis's The North American Indian is the most ambitious photographic and ethnographic record of Native American cultures ever produced. Published between 1907 and 1930 as a series of twenty volumes and portfolios, the work contains more than two thousand photographs intended to document the traditional culture of every Native American tribe west of the Mississippi. Many critics have claimed that Curtis's images present Native peoples as a "vanishing race," hiding both their engagement with modernity and the history of colonial violence. But in this major reappraisal of Curtis's work, Shamoon Zamir argues instead that Curtis's photography engages meaningfully with the crisis of culture and selfhood brought on by the dramatic transformations of Native societies. This crisis is captured profoundly, and with remarkable empathy, in Curtis's images of the human face. Zamir also contends that we can fully understand this achievement only if we think of Curtis's Native subjects as coauthors of his project.
This radical reassessment is presented as a series of close readings that explore the relationship of aesthetics and ethics in photography. Zamir's richly illustrated study resituates Curtis's work in Native American studies and in the histories of photography and visual anthropology.
This radical reassessment is presented as a series of close readings that explore the relationship of aesthetics and ethics in photography. Zamir's richly illustrated study resituates Curtis's work in Native American studies and in the histories of photography and visual anthropology.
Table of Contents
Download Full Book
- PART I: Introduction
- 2. A Third Something: Image and Text
- pp. 23-38
- PART II: Time and History
- 3. The Gift of the Face
- pp. 41-54
- 4. Against History’s Monopoly of Time
- pp. 55-102
- 5. Achieving Portraiture
- pp. 103-130
- PART III: Autography
- 6. The Crow and Photography
- pp. 133-158
- 7. Upshaw and Upshaw—Apsaroke
- pp. 159-189
- 8. Portraits as Self-Portraits of the Artist
- pp. 190-236
- PART IV: Art Science
- 9. A Broad and Luminous Picture
- pp. 239-264
- 10. A People of the Twentieth Century: Coda
- pp. 265-280
- Bibliography
- pp. 303-316
- Acknowledgments
- pp. 317-318
Additional Information
ISBN
9781469615653
Related ISBN(s)
9781469611754, 9781469611761, 9781469659114, 9798890844767
MARC Record
OCLC
880878023
Pages
352
Launched on MUSE
2016-01-01
Language
English
Open Access
No