Haunting the Streets of Cairo: Visual Habits of the Biblical Imaginary in Nineteenth-Century Holy Land Photography
Issue: Vol 43 No. 2 (2014)
Journal: Bulletin for the Study of Religion
Subject Areas: Religious Studies Buddhist Studies Islamic Studies Biblical Studies
DOI: 10.1558/bsor.v43i2.4
Abstract:
This article examines connections between visual habits of American imperialism, photographic technology, and biblical imagination in the last decade of the nineteenth century. The author argues that visual habits of optical elision, or the learned technique of not-seeing photographic contemporaries in order to see instead photographic evidence of a biblical past, linked modes of biblical interpretation with forms of American imperialism. She also contends that halftone print technology introduced considerations of the relationship between images and text, providing silhouettes of theological developments at the end of the century that differentiate photography from prior modes of illustration.
Author: Rachel McBride Lindsey
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