The photograph reaches out: uses of photographs of the dead in China
The photograph reaches out: uses of photographs of the dead in China
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照片触手可及：死者照片在中国的用途
DOI：
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发表时间：
2015
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
Connor Graham
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Connor Graham
Abstract This paper addresses the photograph’s ‘transmission’ – from camera to wall, to book, to hand, to screen – and its ‘transition’ from ‘that-ness’ to ‘this-ness’, from mnemonic to amnesic. Specifically, it examines the role of photographs of the dead through a field study of two elderly women, Madam Wang and Madam Sun, living in Chengdu city, Sichuan, China. The paper deploys Barthes’ 1982 book Camera Lucida to interrogate their use of mostly physical photographs kept in albums and displayed on walls. The paper questions how photographs are conceived as primarily artefacts of representation in Camera Lucida, positing ‘this-ness’ to capture how physical photographs support an extension of the past into the present. The paper also, through positing ‘reach’, argues for an extension of Barthes’ notion of punctum to capture not only the sentimental effects of photographs, but also their ability to express elapsed time, exert moral obligation and play an active role in family life. Through a close examination of Madam Wang and Madam Sun’s use of photographs, physical photographs are presented as having agency: incorporating dead family members into ‘small family’ (小家庭), and holding extended family together, despite absences due to death or migration.