Agitating Images: Photography against History in Indigenous Siberia by Craig Cam

Description: Agitating Images by Craig Campbell Following the socialist revolution, a colossal shift in everyday realities began in the 1920s and 30s in the former Russian empire. Faced with the Siberian North, a vast territory considered culturally and technologically backward by the revolutionary government, the Soviets confidently undertook the project of reshaping the ordinary lives of the indigenous peoples in order to fold them into the Soviet state. In "Agitating Images," Craig Campbell draws a rich and unsettling cultural portrait of the encounter between indigenous Siberians and Russian communists and reveals how photographs from this period complicate our understanding of this history."Agitating Images" provides a glimpse into the first moments of cultural engineering in remote areas of Soviet Siberia. The territories were perceived by outsiders to be on the margins of civilization, replete with shamanic rituals and inhabited by exiles, criminals, and "primitive" indigenous peoples. The Soviets hoped to permanently transform the mythologized landscape by establishing socialist utopian developments designed to incorporate minority cultures into the communist state. This book delves deep into photographic archives from these Soviet programs, but rather than using the photographs to complement an official history, Campbell presents them as anti-illustrations, or intrusions, that confound simple narratives of Soviet bureaucracy and power. Meant to agitate, these images offer critiques that cannot be explained in text alone and, in turn, put into question the nature of photographs as historical artifacts.An innovative approach to challenging historical interpretation, "Agitating Images" demonstrates how photographs go against accepted premises of Soviet Siberia. All photographs, Campbell argues, communicate in unique ways that present new and even contrary possibilities to the text they illustrate. Ultimately, "Agitating Images" dissects our very understanding of the production of historical knowledge. FORMAT Paperback LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Author Biography Craig Campbell is assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Texas, Austin. Table of Contents ContentsAcknowledgmentsPrologueIntroduction: In the Archives of the Cultural BaseThe Years Are Like CenturiesDangerous CommunicationsConclusion: Ethics of Presence and the (De)generative ImageNotesBibliographyIndex Review "The archival turn has had a sobering effect on recent attempts to grapple with the histories of photography but for the best studies––like Craig Campbells––the archive itself is part of the historical problem: its internal mechanisms, its effects of power, its production of truth and its techniques of forgetting and erasure––all effects that, as Campbell shows in this highly original work of excavation and disruption, can never be entirely secured against the arbitrariness and disfunction of the archival machine and the troubling liability of archival photographs to slip and slide out of place." —John Tagg, Binghamton University"Pathbreaking, provocative, and illuminating."—CHOICE"[An] interesting and well-written study."—American Historical Review"Campbells project is an unabashedly original contribution to the intersecting fields of anthropology, media theory, and Russian/Soviet history, providing us with a stimulating and deep reevaluation of each field as well as the very status of the image itself."—Slavic and East European Journal Long Description Following the socialist revolution, a colossal shift in everyday realities began in the 1920s and 30s in the former Russian empire. Faced with the Siberian North, a vast territory considered culturally and technologically backward by the revolutionary government, the Soviets confidently undertook the project of reshaping the ordinary lives of the indigenous peoples in order to fold them into the Soviet state. In Agitating Images, Craig Campbell draws a rich and unsettling cultural portrait of the encounter between indigenous Siberians and Russian communists and reveals how photographs from this period complicate our understanding of this history. Agitating Images provides a glimpse into the first moments of cultural engineering in remote areas of Soviet Siberia. The territories were perceived by outsiders to be on the margins of civilization, replete with shamanic rituals and inhabited by exiles, criminals, and "primitive" indigenous peoples. The Soviets hoped to permanently transform the mythologized landscape by establishing socialist utopian developments designed to incorporate minority cultures into the communist state. This book delves deep into photographic archives from these Soviet programs, but rather than using the photographs to complement an official history, Campbell presents them as anti-illustrations, or intrusions, that confound simple narratives of Soviet bureaucracy and power. Meant to agitate, these images offer critiques that cannot be explained in text alone and, in turn, put into question the nature of photographs as historical artifacts. An innovative approach to challenging historical interpretation, Agitating Images demonstrates how photographs go against accepted premises of Soviet Siberia. All photographs, Campbell argues, communicate in unique ways that present new and even contrary possibilities to the text they illustrate. Ultimately, Agitating Images dissects our very understanding of the production of historical knowledge. Review Quote "The archival turn has had a sobering effect on recent attempts to grapple with the histories of photography but for the best studies--like Craig Campbells--the archive itself is part of the historical problem: its internal mechanisms, its effects of power, its production of truth and its techniques of forgetting and erasure--all effects that, as Campbell shows in this highly original work of excavation and disruption, can never be entirely secured against the arbitrariness and disfunction of the archival machine and the troubling liability of archival photographs to slip and slide out of place." --John Tagg, Binghamton University Details ISBN0816681066 Year 2014 ISBN-10 0816681066 ISBN-13 9780816681068 Format Paperback Publication Date 2014-09-01 Author Craig Campbell Short Title AGITATING IMAGES Language English Media Book Imprint University of Minnesota Press Place of Publication Minnesota Country of Publication United States Pages 272 Subtitle Photography against History in Indigenous Siberia UK Release Date 2014-09-01 NZ Release Date 2014-09-01 US Release Date 2014-09-01 Publisher University of Minnesota Press Alternative 9780816681051 DEWEY 323.11941 Illustrations 19 Audience General AU Release Date 2014-10-31 Series First Peoples: New Directions in Indigenous Studies We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. 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