“On White Eyes” explores two moments in American history when societal events collided with new modes of visual representation in ways that forced white Americans to pay more attention to their conceptions of race.
creator
Lewis, Avery Owen (Class of 2021)
Title
On White Eyes
sponsor
Landrom, Ann (Faculty/Staff)
advisor
Andrews, Stephen, 1956- (Faculty/Staff)
supporting host
Grinnell College. Careers, Life, and Service
supporting host
Grinnell College. English
Index Date
2021
Date (Other)
2021-04-02
Publisher
Grinnell College
Type of Resource
text
Genre
essay
Digital Origin
reformated digital
Digital Extent
22 pages
Media Type
application/pdf
description
“On White Eyes” explores two moments in American history when societal events collided with new modes of visual representation in ways that forced white Americans to pay more attention to their conceptions of race. The lectures that Frederick Douglass gave during the Civil War years on the connection between race relations in the United States and the invention of photography serve as a key text through which this essay explores the issue of whiteness and the image. By first illustrating Douglass’s profound visual legacy that has up until very recently gone unnoticed and then unpacking the complexities between race and photography in Douglass’s lectures, we find that for Douglass race relations in the United States could not be untangled from its relationship with photography and “picture-making” more broadly.
note
Frederick Baumann Essay Prize (2021)
note
Essay is inspired by a Mentored Advanced Project (MAP) with Steve Andrews in summer of 2020
Language
English
Topic
Race relations
Topic
Racism
Geographic
United States
Temporal
21st century
Classification
E184
Related Item
Digital Grinnell
Related Item
Student Scholarship
Related Item
Frederick Baumann Essay Prize
Identifier ()
ENG
Identifier (local)
grinnell:29698
Access Condition
Copyright to this work is held by the author(s), in accordance with United States copyright law (USC 17). Readers of this work have certain rights as defined by the law, including but not limited to fair use (17 USC 107 et seq.).
