Talks by Schem Rogerson Bader
Steph Schem Rogerson Queer Photography, The Archive and The Elasticity of Time Time is investigat... more Steph Schem Rogerson Queer Photography, The Archive and The Elasticity of Time Time is investigated as functioning beyond chronological spaces of eras, time periods and historical moments, in order to expand on nuances of queerness, the archive and photography. By questioning traditional historiographic practices, representation is evaluated beyond constraints of truth to flesh out how fragmentation, temporality and elasticity are vital to queer discourse. This research takes up Foucauldian approaches of historicity where relationality lies between history and life as well as Henri Bergson's notion of duration and time that speaks to multiplicity and consciousness. This research seeks to explore historical queer photographs with the express interest of examining durational elasticity, or what I refer to as 'oblique time,' time not in accordance with linear time. Building on concepts of queer time by Judith Halberstam and the notion of orientation as elaborated on by Sara Ahmed, this work takes a step forward to examine fragmentation and elasticity of time through queer archival photographs. Archival research will provide new photographic case studies, which will work alongside developing the conceptual argument about time. The history of queer lives as a location of inquiry, debate and knowledge has come to the fore in recent years through questions of space and time in the archive. Queer time and space in the archive and its complex relation to temporalities facilitate critical approaches to discourse and social change by shifting hegemonic power relations from absolute truth to signifying potentialities. Beyond the surface of normative time are fragmentations in the archive that stitch across time to reveal elasticity, which opens valuable debates on existence, tenacity and the idiosyncratic. Rather than adhere to the efficiency and completeness associated with the principles of archival work, this proposal focuses on 'being at home in marginal areas' (Walter Benjamin) in order to push out from the sides toward the centre to investigate distinctive applications of difference. Time and relationality have been key considerations for scholars across disciples, however this approach to queer thought and visual culture is waiting to be more fully elaborated on and understood. My research takes up these considerations in order to place archival queer photographs within this discourse to examine more deeply how and under what conditions fragmentation, relationality and time play in the role of queer knowledge and the photographic. Cultural theory scholars working with questions of queer history have argued that queer archives are repositories of affect (Ann Cvetkovic), or sites of recuperation (Charles Morris), while further arguments have also been made for the cultural relevance of users and interpreters of queer archives.
The mass production of the carte-de-visite and early popular photography created an industry for ... more The mass production of the carte-de-visite and early popular photography created an industry for the production of the image, where the individual was sublimated into the masses. The conventions employed in nineteenth century portraiture show repetitions of the bourgeois imagination, where subjects leaned against fake columns or sat in prescribed, performative livingrooms. How do these conventions play out for non-status quo sexualities? Where do notions of queerness interrupt or trouble such conventions of capitalism?
My research investigates photography from the nineteenth century and queer representation through the analysis of both social conditions that formed discourses of homosexuality and Industrialism’s development of photography. By investigating archival photographs from the period, this paper examines the limits of capitalist convention through the subversion of gender and sexuality, as well as how historical artifacts of queer representation from this time period illustrate cultural themes of oppressive categorization and survival.
Through the analysis of both social conditions that formed discourses of homosexuality and Indust... more Through the analysis of both social conditions that formed discourses of homosexuality and Industrialism’s development of photography, this paper investigates photography from the late nineteenth century and its impacts queer representation. The birth of popular photography was a historically significant cultural moment that reveals a disconnection between oppressive laws and social reform. For those involved in same-sex affection or non-normative sexuality, the relationship to these technologies had layered and coded meanings. This paper tackles the divide between discursive technology and representation by examining the social conditions of same-sex affection and mass production in the nineteenth century. By considering this division, I See You investigates how industrialization and the function of photography involved the mass production of both images and ideologies that affected gender relations and sexuality. The mass production of the carte-de-visite and early popular photography created an industry for the production of the image, where the individual was sublimated to the mass. Yet, as argued in I See You, photography also gave rise to subversion of normativity. Case studies in this paper examine the relationality of gender, sex and race to early popular photography from archives in Canada and the U.S.
Introduction This paper examines early photographic portraiture and historical representations of... more Introduction This paper examines early photographic portraiture and historical representations of queerness. I am particularly interested in images that were not intended for mass consumption, such as the archived self-portrait of American, Alice Austen [1891] and the two found photographs of Mariam Babbitt and Augusta North [1899]. I discuss through a phenomenological paradigm how these images illustrate gender and sexuality outside of the status quo of their respective eras to reveal the impact of photography interpretation on queer lives in early modernity. My analysis of how representation is experienced through these photographs considers two key texts to my research, Sara Ahmed's Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects, Others and Roland Barthes's Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography.
Papers by Schem Rogerson Bader
Routledge eBooks, Jul 22, 2021
Routledge eBooks, Jul 22, 2021
Routledge eBooks, Jul 22, 2021
List of contributors Guided tour Acknowledgements Introduction: Getting started: 'doing' ... more List of contributors Guided tour Acknowledgements Introduction: Getting started: 'doing' media studies Part One: Media texts and meanings Chapter 1: How do media make meaning? Chapter 2: Organising meaning in media texts: genre and narrative Chapter 3: Media representations Chapter 4: Reality media Part Two : Producing media Chapter 5: The business of media Chapter 6: Media regulation and policy Chapter 7: Media production in a global age Part Three: Media audiences Chapter 8: Producing audiences: what do media do to people? Chapter 9: Investigating audiences: what do people do with media? Part Four: Media and social contexts Chapter 10: Media power Chapter 11: Conceptualising mass society Chapter 12: Modernism, postmodernism and after Chapter 13: The consumer society and advertising Part Five: Historiography Chapter 14: Media histories Conclusion: Doing your media studies Glossary References Index
Time is investigated as functioning beyond chronological spaces of eras, time periods and histori... more Time is investigated as functioning beyond chronological spaces of eras, time periods and historical moments, in order to expand on nuances of queerness, the archive, and photography. By questioning traditional historiographic practices, representation is evaluated beyond constraints of truth to flesh out how fragmentation, temporality, and elasticity are vital to queer discourse. This research takes up Foucauldian approaches of historicity where relationality lies between history and life as well as Henri Bergson’s notion of duration and time that speaks to multiplicity and consciousness. This research seeks to explore historical queer photographs with the express interest of examining durational elasticity, or what I refer to as ‘oblique time,’ time not in accordance with linear time. Building on concepts of queer time by Judith Halberstam and the notion of orientation as elaborated on by Sara Ahmed, this work takes a step forward to examine fragmentation and elasticity of time through queer archival photographs.
Queer Archives
By the nineteenth century a vast array of ethnographies such as raci... more Queer Archives
By the nineteenth century a vast array of ethnographies such as racialization, class, sexuality, gender and criminology had become the cornerstone to the social sciences. The body became a site of social regulation, and the notion of truth and its manifestations on the body became culturally realized through systemic ideologies. The social body was the triumph of Bourgeois order, where the political economy of Industrialism, Capitalism and Imperialism were entwined with the individual and the state, and where sexual conduct was converted to economic and political behavior.
The category of homosexuality was a device meant to control and regulate. Foucaultian analysis asserts that nineteenth century prohibitions established far reaching oppressive sexual discourses, however, through systems set out to control sexuality - homosexuality began to speak in its own behalf (Foucault 1980).
The queer archive provides a site of memory that historically has been entrenched in erasure, inscribing both the archives and their users with political power. Without knowledge of the past, what can we expect of future queer subjectivities?
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Talks by Schem Rogerson Bader
My research investigates photography from the nineteenth century and queer representation through the analysis of both social conditions that formed discourses of homosexuality and Industrialism’s development of photography. By investigating archival photographs from the period, this paper examines the limits of capitalist convention through the subversion of gender and sexuality, as well as how historical artifacts of queer representation from this time period illustrate cultural themes of oppressive categorization and survival.
Papers by Schem Rogerson Bader
By the nineteenth century a vast array of ethnographies such as racialization, class, sexuality, gender and criminology had become the cornerstone to the social sciences. The body became a site of social regulation, and the notion of truth and its manifestations on the body became culturally realized through systemic ideologies. The social body was the triumph of Bourgeois order, where the political economy of Industrialism, Capitalism and Imperialism were entwined with the individual and the state, and where sexual conduct was converted to economic and political behavior.
The category of homosexuality was a device meant to control and regulate. Foucaultian analysis asserts that nineteenth century prohibitions established far reaching oppressive sexual discourses, however, through systems set out to control sexuality - homosexuality began to speak in its own behalf (Foucault 1980).
The queer archive provides a site of memory that historically has been entrenched in erasure, inscribing both the archives and their users with political power. Without knowledge of the past, what can we expect of future queer subjectivities?
My research investigates photography from the nineteenth century and queer representation through the analysis of both social conditions that formed discourses of homosexuality and Industrialism’s development of photography. By investigating archival photographs from the period, this paper examines the limits of capitalist convention through the subversion of gender and sexuality, as well as how historical artifacts of queer representation from this time period illustrate cultural themes of oppressive categorization and survival.
By the nineteenth century a vast array of ethnographies such as racialization, class, sexuality, gender and criminology had become the cornerstone to the social sciences. The body became a site of social regulation, and the notion of truth and its manifestations on the body became culturally realized through systemic ideologies. The social body was the triumph of Bourgeois order, where the political economy of Industrialism, Capitalism and Imperialism were entwined with the individual and the state, and where sexual conduct was converted to economic and political behavior.
The category of homosexuality was a device meant to control and regulate. Foucaultian analysis asserts that nineteenth century prohibitions established far reaching oppressive sexual discourses, however, through systems set out to control sexuality - homosexuality began to speak in its own behalf (Foucault 1980).
The queer archive provides a site of memory that historically has been entrenched in erasure, inscribing both the archives and their users with political power. Without knowledge of the past, what can we expect of future queer subjectivities?
Editors: Kelly Fritsch, Clare O’Connor and AK Thompson. Chicago: AK Press, 2016.
By investigating archival material with a specific focus on queer history and photography, the case studies illustrate how our affective lives are saturated with political meaning. Photography wields unusual power when examining the relationship between affect and feeling. The affect of photography derives from its insistence on the past. Yet, photography produces a here and now that can resist strictures of heteronormativity and patriarchy through politicized feelings. The approach to queer historization is firmly rooted in notions of social justice imperatives and anti-oppressive political strategies that include racism, gender inequality and classism. Queer archives evoke cultural persistence and knowledge through the affective context of remembering.
The text is divided into three parts – Media texts and meanings; Producing media; and Media and social contexts – exploring the ways in which various media forms make meaning; are produced and regulated; and how society, culture and history are defined by such forms. Encouraging students to actively engage in media research and analysis, each chapter seeks to guide readers through key questions and ideas in order to empower them to develop their own scholarship, expertise and investigations of the media worlds in which we live. Fully updated to reflect the contemporary media environment, the third edition includes new case studies covering topics such as Brexit, podcasts, Love Island, Captain Marvel, Black Lives Matter, Netflix, data politics, the Kardashians, President Trump, ‘fake news’, the post-Covid world and perspectives on global media forms.
This is an essential introduction for undergraduate and postgraduate students of media studies, cultural studies, communication studies, film studies, the sociology of the media and popular culture.