PHOTOGRAPHY| BIOGRAPHY
IntheShadowof Genius The Brooklyn Bridge and Its Creators Barbara G. Mensch ?The charm of this book, its foremost value, is that it proceeds from the viewpoint of a superb visual artist who uses this particular structure and cityscape, the Brooklyn Bridge, as her muse. It is this personal encounter with the physical sites of her protagonists that makes the book so unusual. As well, her exploration of the inner chambers of the bridge is novel and thrilling.? ?Phillip Lopate In the Shadow of Genius is the newest book by photographer and author Barbara Mensch. The author combines her striking photographs with a powerful first-person narrative. She takes the reader on a unique journey by recalling her experiences living alongside the bridge for more than 30 years, and then by tracing her own curious path to understand the brilliant minds and remarkable lives of those who built it: John, Washington, and Emily Roebling.
160 pages, 8 1/ 2 x 11 113 col or il l ust rat ions 9780823280452, Cl ot h, $34.95 Empire State Editions
Barbara G. Mensch has had numerous exhibitions of her photographic work. Her images are represented in some of New York City?s most prestigious galleries, and her work is included in important collections, including those of Fundacion Televisa of Mexico City and the Bibliothèque Nationale.
PHOTOGRAPHY| ANTHROPOLOGY
NOVEMBER2018
Table of Contents
TheBlindMan A Phantasmography Robert Desjarlais ?Emerging from an unknown body, enthralling images, and lacerating silences, The Blind Man is written with the force of literature. Desjarlais?s fierce masterpiece reawakens anthropology?s sense of wonder with the affective, spectral nature of worldly encounters. A transformational book.?? JoĂŁo Biehl, Princeton University The Blind Man: A Phantasmography examines the complicated forces of perception, imagination, and phantasms of encounter in the contemporary world. In considering photographs he took while he was traveling in France, Robert Desjarlais reflects on a few pictures that show the features of a man, apparently blind, who begs for money at a religious site in Paris. He begins to imagine what this man?s life is like and how he perceives the world around him.
232 pages, 64 bl ack-and-whit e il l ust rat ions 9780823281114, Paper, $29.95 Thinking from Elsewhere
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Written in journal form, the book narrates Desjarlais?s pursuit of the man portrayed in the photographs. He travels to Paris and tries to meet with him. Eventually, Desjarlais becomes unsure as to what he sees, hears, or remembers. Through these interpretive dilemmas he senses the complexities of perception, where all is multiple, shifting, spectral, a surge of phantasms in which the actual and the imagined are endlessly blurred and intertwined. His own vision is affected in a troubling way. Robert Desjarlais is an award-winning anthropologist and writer teaching at Sarah Lawrence College.