Liam Kennedy here takes as his focus the ways in which selected photographers have sought to frame the activities and effects of American foreign policy, often with a critical perspective, and how their work engages the dynamics of power and knowledge that attend the American worldview. What is at issue in this book is understanding relations between the geopolitical conditions of visuality and the particulars of the image. Conditions of visuality, for Kennedy, are the ideologies that determine certain ways of seeing, that support actions and representations which establish (in)visibilities and which police the relationship between seeing and believing the American worldview. The individual photographers whose work Kennedy so insightfully dissects are those who have pushed the boundaries of photographic practice and who reflect critically on the contexts and scenery of war: Larry Burrows and Philip Jones Griffiths in Vietnam, Gilles Peress covering the Iranian Revolution, Susan Meiselas in El Salvador and Nicaragua, Ron Haviv and Gary Knight in the Balkans, Ashley Gilbertson and Chris Hondros in Iraq, and Tim Hetherington and Lynsey Addario in Afghanistan. These individuals expanded the conception and technical repertoire of photojournalism, receiving critical acclaim, provoking public and professional controversy, and often incurring great personal cost to themselves. Afterimages presents us with a revisionary understanding of the art of conflict photography. The images are often searing they sometimes demonize and dehumanize the enemy, but also humanize friend or victim: a focus on the human roots the range of feeling in such imagery, from horror to pity."
Show moreLiam Kennedy here takes as his focus the ways in which selected photographers have sought to frame the activities and effects of American foreign policy, often with a critical perspective, and how their work engages the dynamics of power and knowledge that attend the American worldview. What is at issue in this book is understanding relations between the geopolitical conditions of visuality and the particulars of the image. Conditions of visuality, for Kennedy, are the ideologies that determine certain ways of seeing, that support actions and representations which establish (in)visibilities and which police the relationship between seeing and believing the American worldview. The individual photographers whose work Kennedy so insightfully dissects are those who have pushed the boundaries of photographic practice and who reflect critically on the contexts and scenery of war: Larry Burrows and Philip Jones Griffiths in Vietnam, Gilles Peress covering the Iranian Revolution, Susan Meiselas in El Salvador and Nicaragua, Ron Haviv and Gary Knight in the Balkans, Ashley Gilbertson and Chris Hondros in Iraq, and Tim Hetherington and Lynsey Addario in Afghanistan. These individuals expanded the conception and technical repertoire of photojournalism, receiving critical acclaim, provoking public and professional controversy, and often incurring great personal cost to themselves. Afterimages presents us with a revisionary understanding of the art of conflict photography. The images are often searing they sometimes demonize and dehumanize the enemy, but also humanize friend or victim: a focus on the human roots the range of feeling in such imagery, from horror to pity."
Show moreLiam Kennedy is professor of American studies and director of the Clinton Institute for American Studies at University College Dublin. He is the author or editor of several books, including The Violence of the Image: Photography and International Conflict.
"Afterimages makes a powerful argument for the role that
photojournalism has played in affirming the values of liberal
democracy in the face of the constant and brutal wars waged by the
United States. Kennedy brings to light the strategies and
experience of a range of enormously talented photojournalists in
the face of danger, apathy, and censorship. Afterimages is riveting
in the stories that it tells and insightful in its analysis of the
changing worlds of war and photojournalism--it is smart and
original, a must read for those concerned with war photography,
photojournalism, and US foreign policy over the last fifty
years."-- "Marita Sturken, New York University"
"Afterimages makes immediate and enduring contributions to
scholarship on photojournalism, the representation of violence, and
the role of the press in international politics. Kennedy weaves
together professional, academic, and public commentary to identify
a discourse on photojournalism that has been both guiding
practitioners and subject to continual innovation in tandem with
the changing nature of American warfare. This is a compelling
book."-- "Robert Hariman, Northwestern University"
"Moving from the Vietnam War to the Homeland Security State,
Afterimages examines the work of renowned photojournalists and
documentary photographers who have critically sought to reshape
their genre. In thinking through their images, Kennedy reflects on
broader issues of what the public wants to see and what it chooses
not to see. He is in control of his material, moving nimbly from
analyzing the composition of particular photographs to indicating
their broader cultural significance. By limiting the scope of the
inquiry, Kennedy suggests the larger stakes of our changing
relationship to photographs as documents of war."-- "Diplomatic
History"
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