Photographs of Environmental Phenomena: Scientific Images in the Wake of Environmental Awareness, USA 1860s-1970s

ISBN-13: 9783837630855 / Angielski / Miękka / 2016 / 256 str.

Gisela Parak

Opis

Well before today's debates on global warming and climate change, photographic images have played an important role in educating the general public about the wonders of nature and the destruction of the global environment. Most now-iconic images have historical precursors. Gisela Parak illuminates how the interrelationship of photography and science gave rise to a genre of photographs of environmental phenomena. She emphasizes the power of these images to support and instruct the scientific pursuit of knowledge, as well as their potency as a means of persuading and shaping public opinion.

Recenzje

»This book will be relevant to any assessment of the current media mechanisms that inform collective understanding of the earth and its ecological dynamics. Young scholars interested in this area would do well to follow up on her notes in order to delve further into the resources she cites.« Graham Burnett, Isis, 6 (2018) »Among the publication's other great merits are Gisela Parak's continuous ambition to embed all photographic images and historical, political, cultural and medial developments in their (trans)national and global contexts.« Susanne Leikam, ICON, 22/4 (2017) »Parak hat in zahlreichen, auch wenig erschlossenen Archiven umfangreich recherchiert und präsentiert eine verknüpfende Auswertung der vielfältigen Dokumente und, in einigen Fällen, überraschende und einleuchtende Neuinterpretationen bekannten Materials.« Ulrike Heine, Rundbrief Fotografie, 24/1 (2017) Besprochen in: Isis, 6 (2018), Graham Burnett

O autorze

Parak, GiselaGisela Parak (PD Dr.) is the director of the Brunswick Museum for Photography, Germany, and teaches at the Academy of Fine Arts Stuttgart and at Brunswick Technical University. She was a postdoctoral fellow at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, at Washington University, St. Louis, and at the GHI in Washington, D.C. Her work focuses on the history and theory of photography, American cultural history and art history of the 19th and 20th century.