The Arab imago : a social history of portrait photography, 1860-1910 / Stephen Sheehi.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Sheehi, Stephen, 1967- author.

Contributor:

Princeton University Press, publisher.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Arabs--Portraits.

Arabs.

Photography--Social aspects--Middle East--History--19th century.

Photography.

Photography--Social aspects--Middle East--History--20th century.

Portrait photography--Middle East--History--19th century.

Portrait photography.

Portrait photography--Middle East--History--20th century.

Photography--Social aspects.

Middle East.

Genre:

History.

Portraits.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (266 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Other Title:

Social history of portrait photography, 1860-1910

Place of Publication:

Princeton : Princeton University Press, [2016]

Summary:

"The birth of photography coincided with the expansion of European imperialism in the Middle East, and some of the medium's earliest images are Orientalist pictures taken by Europeans in such places as Cairo and Jerusalem--photographs that have long shaped and distorted the Western visual imagination of the region. But the Middle East had many of its own photographers, collectors, and patrons. In this book, Stephen Sheehi presents a groundbreaking new account of early photography in the Arab world. The Arab Imago concentrates primarily on studio portraits by Arab and Armenian photographers in the late Ottoman Empire. Examining previously known studios such as Abdullah Frères, Pascal Sébah, Garabed Krikorian, and Khalil Raad, the book also provides the first account of other pioneers such as Georges and Louis Saboungi, the Kova Brothers, Muhammad Sadiq Bey, and Ibrahim Rif'at Pasha--as well as the first detailed look at early photographs of the annual pilgrimage to Mecca. In addition, the book explores indigenous photography manuals and albums, newspapers, scientific journals, and fiction. Featuring extensive previously unpublished images, The Arab Imago shows how native photography played an essential role in the creation of modern Arab societies in Egypt, Palestine, Syria, and Lebanon before the First World War. At the same time, the book overturns Eurocentric and Orientalist understandings of indigenous photography and challenges previous histories of the medium"--Publisher's description.

Contents:

Part I. Histories and Practice

Chapter 1. An empire of photographs : Abdullah Frères and the Osmanlilik ideology

Chapter 2. The Arab imago : Jurji Saboungi and the Nahdah image-screen

Chapter 3. The carte de visite : the sociability of new men and women

Chapter 4. Writing photography : technomateriality and the verum factum

Part II. Case Studies and Theory

Chapter 5. Portrait paths : the sociability of the photographic portrait

Chapter 6. Stabilizing portraits, stabilizing modernity

Chapter 7. The latent and the afterimage

Chapter 8. The mirror of two sanctuaries and three photographers

Epilogue: On the cusp of Arab Ottoman photography.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 207-220) and index.

Description based on print record and online resource (A&AePortal, viewed on July 2, 2019).

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

9780691235356

069123535X

9780300249774

0300249772

OCLC:

1107052515