© Columbia University Press
Wondrous Difference: Cinema, Anthropology, and Turn-of-the-Century Visual Culture
Paper, 528 pages, 100 illus.
ISBN: 978-0-231-11697-8
$30.50
/ £21.00
December, 2001
Cloth, 528 pages, 100 illus.
ISBN: 978-0-231-11696-1
$78.00
/ £54.00
The ethical and ideological implications of cross-cultural image-making continue to stir debate among anthropologists, film scholars, and museum professionals. This innovative book focuses on the contested origins of ethnographic film from the late nineteenth century to the 1920s, vividly depicting the dynamic visual culture of the period as it collided with the emerging discipline of anthropology and the new technology of motion pictures. Featuring more than 100 illustrations, the book examines museums of natural history, world's fairs, scientific and popular photography, and the early filmmaking efforts of anthropologists and commercial producers to investigate how cinema came to assume the role of mediator of cultural difference at the beginning of the twentieth century.