‘Photoscapes’ in Jewish History. Locations and Topographies of Jewish Visual Culture

Session Submission Type: Seminar

Abstract

The history of photography offers spaces for the study of the self-perception of photographers and their sitters or objects. In their literal sense, spaces and places of photographic practice, such as urban settings, battle fields or the photographic studio have served as laboratories of social change and reform. Recent scholarship has begun to treat Jewish photographers as agents of such social and political transformations; some scholars have even come to suggest that photography can be treated as a genuinely “Jewish Space”. Drawing on Arjun Appadurai’s concept of mediascapes as markers of “repertoires of narratives”, this seminar discusses hitherto unacknowledged ‘photoscapes’ as spaces of encounter, movement of information and negotiation of identities. Focusing on literal and figurative intersections of the history of photography and the modern Jewish experience, its participants will discuss the benefits, challenges and pitfalls of exploring image production and identity formation in Jewish contexts by means of space as analytical category.
Participants:
Nadya Bair discusses Cornell Capas efforts to define the Jewish character of photography by means of two of his New York exhibitions, while Sara Blair will look at the works of the photographer Zoe Leonard to explore the connections between the legacies of documentary image-making and contemporary forms of photographic expression. Maya Benton will share her perspective on the challenge of allocating archival and curatorial spaces for Jewish photographers’ collections, while Laura Wexler provides insights into how the category of spaces guides her teaching on photography and memory. Deborah Dash Moore investigates ways Jewish photographers have come to picture cities and their public spaces, while Elijah Teitelbaum leaves the city to ask how photobooks can be studied as platforms for spatial representations of Jewish middle-class heritage in American suburban environments. Rebekka Grossmann discusses photographic practices of Jewish migrants in spaces of displacement and their way of using photography to express a distinct alienation from established paradigms of national identify formation. Illuminating the role of photographic practices during the Holocaust, David Shneer explores how photographs shape our understanding of Jewish self-perception in Soviet press photography while Abby Lewis shows how vernacular photography serves to illuminate the microhistories of Jewish refugees in France. Finally, Sarah Leonard presents the 19th century photo studio as a place to investigate the power relations between photographers and Jewish sitters by means of the notions of emotion and affect.

Sub Unit

• Jews, Film, and the Arts

Chairs

• Maya Benton, International Center of Photography

• Rebekka Grossmann, Hebrew University Jerusalem

Discussants

• Deborah Dash Moore, University of Michigan

• David Shneer, University of Colorado, Boulder

• Nadya Bair, Getty/ACLS Postdoctoral Fellow

• Sara B. Blair, University of Michigan

• Sarah Leonard, Simmons University

• Abigail Lewis, University of Wisconsin-Madison

• Elijah Teitelbaum, The University of Cambridge

• Laura J. Wexler, Yale University