Edited by Tanya Sheehan (Colby College, USA) and Andrés Mario Zervigón (Rutgers University, USA), Photography and Its Origins is a collection of 16 original essays published by Routledge. It showcases both prominent and emerging voices in the field of photography studies, including Jessica McDonald, Hans Rooseboom, Stephen Pinson, Dan Estabrook, Geoffrey Batchen, Douglas Nickel, Stephen Bann, Heather Shannon, Marcy Dinius, Francois Brunet, Beth Saunders, Yi Gu, Jurg Schneider, Jordan Bear, Laura Saltz, and Kelley Wilder.
Recent decades have seen a flourishing interest in and speculation about the origins of photography. Spurred by rediscoveries of ‘first’ photographs and proclamations of photography’s death in the digital age, scholars have been rethinking who and what invented the medium. Photography and Its Origins reflects on this interest in photography’s beginnings by reframing it in critical and specifically historiographical terms. How and why do we write about the origins of the medium? Whom or what do we rely on to construct those narratives? What’s at stake in choosing to tell stories of photography’s genesis in one way or another? And what kind of work can those stories do?
For more information about the book, including a full table of contents, go to: http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415722902. Questions may be directed to tsheehan@colby.edu.
Roger Taylor, Emeritus Professor of Photographic History, De Montfort University, Leicester says:
"This collection of essays significantly advances our understanding of the prehistory and origins of photography. Expanding the intellectual and geographic boundaries has allowed new narratives to emerge and challenge the traditional chronicles that have previously dominated the field. An important contribution and persuasive testimony to the emerging interdisciplinary nature of photographic history. "
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