Photographs and the Practice of History: A Short Primer

Description

What is it to practice history in an age in which photographs exist? What is the impact of photographs on the core historiographical practices which define the discipline and shape its enquiry and methods? In Photographs and the Practice of History, Elizabeth Edwards proposes a new approach to historical thinking which explores these questions and redefines the practices at the heart of this discipline. Structured around key concepts in historical methodology which are recognisable to all undergraduates, the book shows that from the mid-19th century onward, photographs have influenced historical enquiry. Exposure to these mass-distributed cultural artefacts is enough to change our historical frameworks even when research is textually-based. Conceptualised as a series of 'sensibilities' rather than a methodology as such, it is intended as a companion to 'how to' approaches to visual research and visual sources. Photographs and the Practice of History not only builds on existing literature by leading scholars: it also offers a highly original approach to historiographical thinking that gives readers a foundation on which to build their own historical practices.

Elizabeth Edwards is Professor Emerita of Photographic History at De Montfort University, Leicester, where she was Director of the Photographic History Research Centre from 2011- 2016. She is also Andrew W. Mellon Professor at the Victoria and Albert Museum Research Institute, London, and Honorary Professor in the Department of Anthropology University College London. Until 2005 she was Curator of Photographs at Pitt Rivers Museum and lecturer in visual anthropology at ISCA, University of Oxford, where she is Curator Emerita and Research Affiliate. In 2015 she was the first photographic specialist to be elected a Fellow of the British Academy. She has worked extensively on the relationship between photography, anthropology and history, on photographs and material culture, and on the work of photographs in museums, notably in colonial legacies. She has received many awards for her work and, over the years, has been on the boards many leading journals and of major museum and archival institutions. In addition to over 100 articles and essays, her monographs and edited works include Raw Histories (2001), Sensible Objects (2006), The Camera as Historian: Amateur Photographers and Historical Imagination 1880-1918 (2012) and Photographs, Museums, Collections (2015).

The presence of photographs disrupts historical practice, and creates opportunities to re-think our relationship with the past. This is the argument Edwards, one of the world's leading photo historians, makes in this immensely powerful, dazzlingly learned, and eminently readable book. A must-read for every student of history! * Maiken Umbach, Professor of Modern History, University of Nottingham, UK * This is a provocative exploration of the subtle synergies between photographs and historical sensibility, written by a major historian of photography. Above all, it is a plea to think afresh about how photographs have radically reshaped our understandings of time, space and history in irreversible ways. * Paul Betts, Professor of Modern European History, St Antony's College, University of Oxford, UK * Through photographs, Edwards shoulders a multiplicity of conceptual and methodological threads-time, scale, presence, context, materiality-that all historians should approach with a new level of consciousness in their practice. Here, photographs are the alibi to address the real silences of history, opening floodgates of potentiality for its future practice. * Patricia Hayes, DSI/NRF SARChI Chair in Visual History & Theory, University of the Western Cape, South Africa * Photographs and the Practice of History is a profound reflection on how photographs have defined our relationship to the past and its implications in the present, from the foremost scholar in the field. Deftly written and alive with questions on the nature of history itself, this is a book every historian, and anyone who works with photographs, should read. * Christina Riggs, Professor of the History of Visual Culture, Durham University, UK *