Reading Native American Portraits in Ottoman: Diplomacy and Photography Across Atlantic & Mediterranean Worlds
“Reading Native American Portraits in Ottoman: Diplomacy and Photography Across Atlantic & Mediterranean Worlds”
Friday, April 14 | 11:00am-12:00pm
Weatherspoon Art Museum auditorium
UNC-Greensboro
A lecture by Emily Voelker (UNCG) and Erin Nolan (Bates College) Beginning with a donation from Ottoman Sultan Abdülhamid II to the Library of Congress, American and Ottoman powers embarked on a decades long photographic gift exchange (c. 1880 – 1910) in the form of sumptuous, presentation albums. Our collaborative project examines the interconnections between these mobile objects as a relational discourse shaped by diplomatic visions, political milieu, colonialist agendas, and, as collections cross-pollinating archives across the American, European, and Asian continents. These album exchanges reveal a networked history of photography across the Atlantic and Mediterranean worlds, characterized by shared themes of expansion, settlement, and race-making across diplomatic survey practices of the era. Dr. Voelker is Assistant Professor of Art History in UNCG’s College of Visual and Performing Arts. Dr. Hyde Nolan is Visiting Assistant Professor of Art and Visual Culture at Bates College and Lecturer at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Tufts University.
Sponsored by the College of Visual and Performing arts, HNAC, Lloyd International Honors College, and UNCG Religious Studies
