Traces of India; Photography, Architecture, and the Politics of Representation, 1850–1900

With contributions by Julia Ballerini, Stephen Bann, Partha Chatterjee, Janet Dewan, Nicholas B. Dirks, John Falconer, Tapati Guha-Thakurta, Narayani Gupta, Peter Hoffenberg, Thomas Metcalf, Christopher Pinney, and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak This interdisciplinary book investigates the roles played by representations of Indian architecture made between the late eighteenth century and the present day. This handsome volume discusses how photographs can be read not just as records of an architectural past but as complex artifacts of the cultural and political forces shaping colonial India. The diverse contributors to the book, from post-colonial theorists to museum curators, examine the connections between photography and architecture through the visual culture of colonialism. The volume explores subjects ranging from representations of landmarks of India from picturesque views to travel mementos, photographs as memorials of historical events, and contemporary popular images. Illustrated with some 180 photographs, many rare or little known, the book offers an appealing and fresh view of colonial images as seen through postcolonial eyes. The volume also includes an extensive bibliography of literature of nineteenth-century photography in South Asia.