The Civil Contract of Photography by Ariella Azoulay

The Civil Contract of Photography by Ariella Azoulay

An argument that anyone can pursue political agency and resistance through photography, even those with flawed or nonexistent citizenship.In this compelling work, Ariella Azoulay reconsiders the political and ethical status of photography. Describing the power relations that sustain and make possible photographic meanings, Azoulay argues that anyone--even a stateless person--who addresses others through photographs or is addressed by photographs can become a member of the citizenry of photography. The civil contract of photography enables anyone to pursue political agency and resistance through photography.Photography, Azoulay insists, cannot be understood separately from the many catastrophes of recent history. The crucial arguments of her book concern two groups with flawed or nonexistent citizenship: the Palestinian noncitizens of Israel and women in Western societies. Azoulay analyzes Israeli press photographs of violent episodes in the Occupied Territories, and interprets various photographs of women--from famous images by stop-motion photographer Eadweard Muybridge to photographs from Abu Ghraib prison. Azoulay asks this question: under what legal, political, or cultural conditions does it become possible to see and to show disaster that befalls those who can claim only incomplete or nonexistent citizenship?Drawing on such key texts in the history of modern citizenship as the Declaration of the Rights of Man together with relevant work by Giorgio Agamben, Jean-Fran ois Lyotard, Susan Sontag, and Roland Barthes, Azoulay explores the visual field of catastrophe, injustice, and suffering in our time. Her book is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the disasters of recent history--and the consequences of how these events and their victims have been represented.

Ariella Azoulay is Director of Photo-Lexic, Tel Aviv University. She is the author of The Civil Contract of Photography (2008) and Death's Showcase: The Power of Image in Contemporary Democracy (2001). Adi Ophir is Professor of Philosophy and Political Theory, Tel Aviv University. He is a coeditor of The Power of Inclusive Exclusion: Anatomy of Israeli Rule in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (2009) and the author of The Order of Evils: Toward and Ontology of Morals (2005).

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781890951894
ISBN 10	1890951897
Title	The Civil Contract of Photography
Author	Ariella Azoulay
Series	The Civil Contract Of Photography
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Zone Books
Year published	2012-12-18
Number of pages	592
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.