The Cruel Radiance Of The Obvious

This introductory essay uses William Eggleston as the point of entry to preview the entire photography issue and includes striking photographs from Ansel Adams, Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, and Susan Harbage Page—as well as exploring the stunning work of Paul Kwilecki. "Photography in its finest and most decisive moments is about those tired or ignored or unseen parts of our lives, the mundane and worn paths that sit before us so firmly that we cease to notice. It is, we might say, about rebuilding our sight in the face of blindness, of recovering our collective vision." This article appears in the Summer 2011 issue of Southern Cultures: The Photography Issue.

Investigates the nature of documentary work, arguing that the work of an observer is not only to represent, but also to interpret reality, and uses examples from literature and photography to show how the observers' personal frame of reference has influenced his or her work.

The Cruel Radiance of the Obvious, The 2011 Photography Issue Tom Rankin, Guest Editor Our second Photography issue features full-color photographs by William Eggleston, William Christenberry, and much more. CONTENTS Front Porch by Harry L. Watson "It requires very special talent to make great photographs, and those who have it are among our finest artists." The Cruel Radiance of the Obvious by Tom Rankin "Photography in its finest and most decisive moments is about those tired or ignored or unseen parts of our lives, the mundane and worn paths that sit before us so firmly that we cease to notice. It is, we might say, about rebuilding our sight in the face of blindness, of recovering our collective vision." American Studies by Michael Carlebach "Many years ago I concluded that for me truth and beauty, and perhaps wit and wisdom as well, are more likely to reside in what is ordinary and seemingly insignificant. This is, perhaps, a sideways look at America and American culture, but it is one that can produce moments that describe us all, but without makeup and bereft of a spokesperson." Mapping The Democratic Forest The Postsouthern Spaces of William Eggleston by Ben Child "When the color photographs of William Eggleston first appeared at the Museum of Modern Art in 1976, the boldness of Eggleston's palette and his disregard for the conventions of black-and-white photography were shocking; nearly all the major critics were scornful, and Ansel Adams wrote a scathing letter of protest." Stereo Propaganda by Lynn Marshall-Linnemeier "In this examination, magic and myth-two of my favorite vehicles-act as buffers to the dominant power structure. It brings together two bodies of collectibles, one personal and one commercial, with the intent of shifting stereotypes about race and southern culture." Interview "Those little color snapshots": William Christenberry interviewed by William R. Ferris "Santa Claus had brought me and my sister a small Brownie camera in the late 1940s, and I just loaded it with color film and went out to that Alabama landscape and began to photograph what caught my eye." Heroes of Hell Hole Swamp Photographs of South Carolina Midwives by Hansel Mieth and W. Eugene Smith by Dolores Flamiano "Mieth and Smith shared a belief that photography could bring social change. They viewed Pat Clark and Maude Callen as heroic healers whose stories would inspire racial understanding. Both photographers shot powerful images of the most visceral human experiences: birth, death, sexuality, and disease." Women Working by Susan Harbage Page "'Rough. It is rough being a female.'" Not Forgotten The Day Is Past and Gone Family Photographs from Eastern North Carolina By Scott Matthews "'It is in fact hard to get the camera to tell the truth; yet it can be made to, in many ways and on many levels. Some of the best photographs we are ever likely to see are innocent domestic snapshots.'" All eight articles from this issue of Southern Cultures are also available individually as stand-alone ebooks.

The tension between social reform photography and photojournalism is examined through this study of the life and work of German ?gr?ansel Mieth (1909-1998), who made an unlikely journey from migrant farm worker to Life photographer. She was the second woman in that role, after Margaret Bourke-White. Unlike her colleagues, Mieth was a working-class reformer with a deep disdain for Life's conservatism and commercialism. In fact, her work often subverted Life's typical representations of women, workers, and minorities. Some of her most compelling photo essays used skillful visual storytelling to offer fresh views on controversial topics: birth control, vivisection, labor unions, and Japanese American internment during the Second World War. Her dual role as reformer and photojournalist made her a desirable commodity at Life in the late 1930s and early 40s, but this role became untenable in Cold War America, when her career was cut short. Today Mieth's life and photographs stand as compelling reminders of the vital yet overlooked role of immigrant women in twentieth-century photojournalism. Women, Workers, and Race in LIFE Magazine draws upon a rich array of primary sources, including Mieth's unpublished memoir, oral histories, and labor archives. The book seeks to unravel and understand the multi-layered, often contested stories of the photographer's life and work. It will be of interest to scholars of photography history, women's studies, visual culture, and media history.

Susie Linfield addresses the issue of whether photographs depicting past scenes of violence & cruelty are voyeuristic, arguing that if we do not look & understand that we are seeing at people, rather than depersonalised acts of inhumanity, our hopes of curbing political violence today are probably limited.

The New York Times bestseller A New York Times Notable and Critics’ Top Book of 2016 Longlisted for the PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction One of NPR's 10 Best Books Of 2016 Faced Tough Topics Head On NPR's Book Concierge Guide To 2016’s Great Reads San Francisco Chronicle's Best of 2016: 100 recommended books A Washington Post Notable Nonfiction Book of 2016 Globe & Mail 100 Best of 2016 “Formidable and truth-dealing . . . necessary.” —The New York Times “This eye-opening investigation into our country’s entrenched social hierarchy is acutely relevant.” —O Magazine In her groundbreaking bestselling history of the class system in America, Nancy Isenberg upends history as we know it by taking on our comforting myths about equality and uncovering the crucial legacy of the ever-present, always embarrassing—if occasionally entertaining—poor white trash. “When you turn an election into a three-ring circus, there’s always a chance that the dancing bear will win,” says Isenberg of the political climate surrounding Sarah Palin. And we recognize how right she is today. Yet the voters who boosted Trump all the way to the White House have been a permanent part of our American fabric, argues Isenberg. The wretched and landless poor have existed from the time of the earliest British colonial settlement to today's hillbillies. They were alternately known as “waste people,” “offals,” “rubbish,” “lazy lubbers,” and “crackers.” By the 1850s, the downtrodden included so-called “clay eaters” and “sandhillers,” known for prematurely aged children distinguished by their yellowish skin, ragged clothing, and listless minds. Surveying political rhetoric and policy, popular literature and scientific theories over four hundred years, Isenberg upends assumptions about America’s supposedly class-free society––where liberty and hard work were meant to ensure real social mobility. Poor whites were central to the rise of the Republican Party in the early nineteenth century, and the Civil War itself was fought over class issues nearly as much as it was fought over slavery. Reconstruction pitted poor white trash against newly freed slaves, which factored in the rise of eugenics–-a widely popular movement embraced by Theodore Roosevelt that targeted poor whites for sterilization. These poor were at the heart of New Deal reforms and LBJ’s Great Society; they haunt us in reality TV shows like Here Comes Honey Boo Boo and Duck Dynasty. Marginalized as a class, white trash have always been at or near the center of major political debates over the character of the American identity. We acknowledge racial injustice as an ugly stain on our nation’s history. With Isenberg’s landmark book, we will have to face the truth about the enduring, malevolent nature of class as well.

In this collection of essays, stories, & literary nonfiction, a noted journalist defends fine storytelling in an age of mass-mediated culture

"In The Making of James Agee, Hugh Davis takes a comprehensive look at Agee's career, showing the interrelatedness of his concerns as a writer. A full view of Agee's oeuvre, Davis argues, illuminates its deeply political nature and reveals a debt to various sources, particularly European surrealism, that have been little noted by previous Agee scholars." "Davis challenges the view of Agee that has persisted since his death - that he is best understood primarily as a romantic individualist at odds with convention and the literary mainstream - and argues that this myth was largely constructed by friends and associates who were so immersed in the tenets of modernism that they distorted Agee's work (and aesthetic intent) in an attempt to purify it in modernist terms. In revealing a writer of far greater complexity than the myth allows, Davis explores, for example, the leftist poetry that Agee wrote in the 1930s, which was almost completely suppressed by his editors. He also throws a fresh light on Agee's collaboration with photographer Walker Evans on Let Us Now Praise Famous Men and reevaluates A Death in the Family in light of recent scholarship that has produced an almost entirely new version of the novel, one much closer to Agee's original intentions."--BOOK JACKET.