Savage preservation : the ethnographic origins of modern media technology / Brian Hochman.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hochman, Brian, 1980- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Ethnology--Fieldwork.

Ethnology.

Anthropology--Fieldwork.

Anthropology.

Mass media--Technological innovations.

Mass media.

Mass media--Social aspects.

Technology--Social aspects.

Technology.

Technology and civilization.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (322 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Minneapolis, Minnesota : University of Minnesota Press, 2014.

Summary:

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, writers and anthropologists believed that the world's primitive races were on the brink of extinction. They also believed that films, photographs, and phonographic recordings-modern media in their technological infancy-could capture lasting relics of primitive life before it vanished into obscurity. For many Americans, the promise of media and the problem of race were inextricably linked. While professional ethnologists tried out early recording machines to preserve the sounds of authentic indigenous cultures, photographers and filmmake

Contents:

Cover; Contents; Introduction: The Passamaquoddy Experiment; 1 Media Evolution: Indians, Alphabets, and the Technological Measures of Man; 2 Representing Plains Indian Sign Language; 3 Originals and Aboriginals: Race and Writing in the Age of the Phonograph; 4 Race, Empire, and the Skin of the Ethnographic Image; 5 Local Colors: The Work of the Autochrome; Postscript: Fictions of Permanence; Acknowledgments; Notes; Bibliography; Index; A; B; C; D; E; F; G; H; I; J; K; L; M; N; O; P; Q; R; S; T; U; V; W; Z

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

1-4529-1099-5

OCLC:

898279644