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The (Mis)Representation of Reality: ‘Knowledge’ and Image-Making in Glass Lantern Slides of China

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 December 2020

AMY MATHEWSON
AMY MATHEWSON*
Affiliation:
School of Oriental and African [email protected]
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Abstract

The Royal Asiatic Society in London houses a collection of magic lantern slides of China dating from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. By investigating a selection of lantern slides, this article explores their epistemological nature and their wider relations to socio-cultural and political systems of power. These lantern slides highlight the complexity of our ways of seeing and representing that are embedded into particular historical and ideological systems in which meaning is both shaped and negotiated. This article argues that images are powerful conduits in disseminating and, if unchallenged, maintaining particular notions and ideas.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 31 , Issue 2 , April 2021 , pp. 303 - 319
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Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 2020

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