[Appel à contributions] Untruths of Photography (Image & Narrative, Issue 20.3)

25 mai : Massacre des dominicains d’Arcueil, route d’Italie no. 38 – 1871 – Photomontage d’Eugène Appert – Bibliothèque historique de la Ville de Paris.

Appel à communication : Untruths of Photography (Image & Narrative, Issue 20.3)

Photographic images have long been categorized as indexical, as something that “is never distinguished from its referent“(Barthes). Photographs capture a moment in time, offering us an image of the real and presenting us with the photographed “object itself” (Bazin). The reasoning for this lays in the mechanical developing process of photographs, which seems to give the images a unique correspondence with reality. But the referential status of photography has time and again been questioned and the relationship between truth and photography has been proven to be vexed (Tagg, Snyder).

The Untruths of Photography seeks to explore the complicated relationship between photography, authenticity and truth. We propose to examine the different ways photographs in fiction dismantle the photographic image’s claim to truth. We thus invite contributions that examine the ways photographs in fiction are used to challenge, undermine, contradict or override traditional notions of the photographic image as reliable or evidential support for the story told.

Theoretically grounded papers on any period or national literature are welcome.

Possible topics might include (but are not limited to):

• the inauthenticity of the photographic image
• the use of photographic disinformation in fiction
• the impact of new photographic technologies on photographic truth
• photographs in the service of irony and ambivalence
• the photographic image as art / the photographic image as testimony

Please submit a 300-word abstract and short bio to Nancy Pedri at npedri@mun.ca and Agnes Neier at agnes.neier@ut.ee by July 1, 2018.

ARIP

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