LEADER 04088nam 2200661Ia 450 001 9910451151703321 005 20210610012644.0 010 $a1-281-22398-0 010 $a0-226-73148-0 010 $a9786611223984 024 7 $a10.7208/9780226731483 035 $a(CKB)1000000000408804 035 $a(EBL)408405 035 $a(OCoLC)476228900 035 $a(SSID)ssj0000221787 035 $a(PQKBManifestationID)11191450 035 $a(PQKBTitleCode)TC0000221787 035 $a(PQKBWorkID)10168549 035 $a(PQKB)11670114 035 $a(MiAaPQ)EBC408405 035 $a(DE-B1597)535552 035 $a(OCoLC)781254502 035 $a(DE-B1597)9780226731483 035 $a(Au-PeEL)EBL408405 035 $a(CaPaEBR)ebr10216917 035 $a(CaONFJC)MIL122398 035 $a(EXLCZ)991000000000408804 100 $a19970108d1997 uy 0 101 0 $aeng 135 $aurnn#---|u||| 181 $ctxt 182 $cc 183 $acr 200 10$aPicturing ourselves$b[electronic resource] $ephotography & autobiography /$fLinda Haverty Rugg 210 $aChicago $cUniversity of Chicago Press$d1997 215 $a1 online resource (302 p.) 300 $aDescription based upon print version of record. 311 0 $a0-226-73147-2 311 0 $a0-226-73146-4 320 $aIncludes bibliographical references (p. 261-269) and index. 327 $tFront matter --$tContents --$tIllustrations --$tAcknowledgments --$tIntroduction --$tI. Illumination and Obfuscation: Mark Twain? Photographic Autobiography --$tII. Photographing the Soul: August Strindberg --$tIII. The Angel of History us Photographer: Walter Benjamin? Berlin Childhood around 1900 --$tIV. The Lost Photo Album Christa Wolf's Patterns of Childhood --$tConclusion --$tNotes --$tWorks Cited --$tIndex 330 $aPhotography has transformed the way we picture ourselves. Although photographs seem to "prove" our existence at a given point in time, they also demonstrate the impossibility of framing our multiple and fragmented selves. As Linda Haverty Rugg convincingly shows, photography's double take on self-image mirrors the concerns of autobiographers, who see the self as simultaneously divided (in observing/being) and unified by the autobiographical act. Rugg tracks photography's impact on the formation of self-image through the study of four literary autobiographers concerned with the transformative power of photography. Obsessed with self-image, Mark Twain and August Strindberg both attempted (unsuccessfully) to integrate photographs into their autobiographies. While Twain encouraged photographers, he was wary of fakery and kept a fierce watch on the distribution of his photographic image. Strindberg, believing that photographs had occult power, preferred to photograph himself. Because of their experiences under National Socialism, Walter Benjamin and Christa Wolf feared the dangerously objectifying power of photographs and omitted them from their autobiographical writings. Yet Benjamin used them in his photographic conception of history, which had its testing ground in his often-ignored Berliner Kindheit um 1900. And Christa Wolf's narrator in Patterns of Childhood attempts to reclaim her childhood from the Nazis by reconstructing mental images of lost family photographs. Confronted with multiple and conflicting images of themselves, all four of these writers are torn between the knowledge that texts, photographs, and indeed selves are haunted by undecidability and the desire for the returned glance of a single self. 606 $aAutobiography 606 $aPhotography$xPhilosophy 606 $aSelf-realization in literature 608 $aElectronic books. 615 0$aAutobiography. 615 0$aPhotography$xPhilosophy. 615 0$aSelf-realization in literature. 676 $a770/.1 700 $aRugg$b Linda Haverty$0991586 801 0$bMiAaPQ 801 1$bMiAaPQ 801 2$bMiAaPQ 906 $aBOOK 912 $a9910451151703321 996 $aPicturing ourselves$92269383 997 $aUNINA