Through the Negative: The Photographic Image and the Written Word in Nineteenth-century American Literature (Literary Criticism & Cultural Theory: Outstanding Dissertations) Book

The Civil War was the first "image war," as photographs of the battlefields became the dominant means for capturing an epochal historic moment. At the same time, writers used the Civil War to present both their notions of nation and their ideas about the new intersections between photography and literary form. Through the Negative offers an account of the collisions between print and visual culture in the work of Hawthorne, Melville, Twain, and Crane, as they responded to and incorporated the work of such photographers as George Barnard, Alexander Gardner, and Jacob Riis. Megan Rowley Williams examines how key nineteenth-century American writers attempted to combat, understand, and incorporate the advent of photography in their fiction. In so doing, Williams demonstrates how analyzing the impact of photography on the diverse narrative histories of the nineteenth century yields fresh insights about contemporary art and writing-including an epilogue that applies her study to photography of the events of 9/11-as the photographic image continues to shape national consciousness.Read More