The Gift of the Face: Portraiture and Time in Edward S. Curtis's The North American Indian

by Shamoon Zamir

Overview

Edward S. Curtis's The North American Indian is the most ambitious photographic and ethnographic record of Native American cultures ever produced. Published between 1907 and 1930 as a series of twenty volumes and portfolios, the work contains more than two thousand photographs intended to document the traditional culture of every Native American tribe west of the Mississippi. Many critics have claimed that Curtis's images present Native peoples as a "vanishing race," hiding both their engagement with modernity and the history of colonial violence. But in this major reappraisal of Curtis's work, Shamoon Zamir argues instead that Curtis's photography engages meaningfully with the crisis of culture and selfhood brought on by the dramatic transformations of Native societies. This crisis is captured profoundly, and with remarkable empathy, in Curtis's images of the human face. Zamir also contends that we can fully understand this achievement only if we think of Curtis's Native subjects as coauthors of his project.

This radical reassessment is presented as a series of close readings that explore the relationship of aesthetics and ethics in photography. Zamir's richly illustrated study resituates Curtis's work in Native American studies and in the histories of photography and visual anthropology.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781469611761
Publisher:	The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date:	08/14/2014
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	352
File size:	5 MB

About the Author

Shamoon Zamir is Professor of Literature and Art History at New York University Abu Dhabi.

Table of Contents

Edward S. Curtis's The North American Indian is the most ambitious photographic and ethnographic record of Native American cultures ever produced. Published between 1907 and 1930 as a series of twenty volumes and portfolios, the work contains more than two thousand photographs intended to document the traditional culture of every Native American tribe west of the Mississippi. Zamir argues that Curtis's photography engages meaningfully with the crisis of culture and selfhood brought on by the dramatic transformations of Native societies. This radical reassessment is presented as a series of close readings that explore the relationship of aesthetics and ethics in photography. Zamir's richly illustrated study resituates Curtis's work in Native American studies and in the histories of photography and visual anthropology.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Well researched, convincingly argued, and elegantly written, The Gift of the Face constitutes a remarkable achievement and a highly significant contribution to Native American studies and visual cultural studies.—Shari Huhndorf, University of California, Berkeley



The major strength of this book resides in its close readings of a selection of photogravures of Native Americans, mostly portraits, made by Edward S. Curtis for the monumental publication The North American Indian. Zamir reveals and emphasizes the role of Native figures—not just as informants, but as subjects—in the creation and meaning of these images. The book will surely appeal to specialists in Native American studies, visual culture, American studies, anthropology, history, and related fields. It should also appeal to a broader, more general readership of ethically minded citizens, especially to the many readers interested in Native Americans.—Mick Gidley, University of Leeds



A fascinating re-evaluation of the ways (post-)modern scholarship has been reading Edward S. Curtis's The North American Indian, a turning point for all of us who firmly believe in the assessment that images do not hold one single fixed meaning. And it is certainly a must for scholars and students in the fields of Visual Cultural Studies, Native American Studies, Anthropology, American History, Art History, and American Studies more generally."—Karsten Fitz, Universitat Passau

Editorial Reviews

[Zamir's] analysis is often novel and compelling.—Journal of American History



Insightful and persuasive…a valuable contribution to several disciplines.—Native American and Indigenous Studies



An important and significant new contribution to the scholarship of Native American studies, and also to anthropology, American history, photography, and the study of visual culture." —ARLIS/NA Reviews



Bold and original.—Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute



The consistent presence of Native agency is brought stunningly to light by Zamir's often brilliant analyses. Against an all-too-frequent nihilism in postcolonial studies, Zamir offers a more nuanced pathway to reassessing Curtis's monumental achievement-however flawed ethically and ethnographically it may be-in the history of intercultural interpretation.— Peter M. Whiteley, American Museum of Natural History, New York, in Dialectical Anthropology

From the Publisher