Ecologies of Photography in the American West

Monica Bravo (Editor), Carolin Görgen (Editor),

Paperback
Epub
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Series: Lieven Gevaert Series 36

Category: Art, Climate and Ecology, Photography

Language: English

DOI: 10.11116/9789461667670

ISBN: 9789462705234

Publication date: September 15, 2026

€49.50 (including 6% VAT)

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Available to pre-order two weeks before date of publication.

Number of pages: 296

Size: 230 x 170 x mm

Illustrations and other content description:
Illustrated, full colour

Standard delivery time for print books:

For Belgium: 5 to 8 working days

For EU: 2 to 3 weeks

For other countries: 4 to 5 weeks

Series: Lieven Gevaert Series 36

Category: Art, Climate and Ecology, Photography

Language: English

DOI: 10.11116/9789461667670

ISBN: 9789461667670

Publication date: September 15, 2026

€42.00 (including 6% VAT)

COMING SOON

Number of pages: 296

Illustrations and other content description:
Illustrated, full colour

Series: Lieven Gevaert Series 36

Category: Art, Climate and Ecology, Photography

Language: English

DOI: 10.11116/9789461667670

ISBN: 9789461667663

Publication date: September 15, 2026

€42.00 (including 6% VAT)

COMING SOON

Number of pages: 296

Illustrations and other content description:
Illustrated, full colour

Summary
About the Editors
Contributing Authors
Reviews

The evolving ecological dimensions of photography in the American West and their ongoing impact.

Photography and the American West have long been culturally intertwined. Since the 19th century, iconic photographs of western landscapes—think of Carleton Watkins’s Yosemite views—have been read as inherently environmentalist. Challenging this assumption, Ecologies of Photography in the American West examines the medium’s role in documenting, profiting from, and transforming ecosystems across its varied geographies. This book brings together a diverse range of scholars and artists to trace photography’s roots in the earth and its entanglement with resource extraction and ecological rights. Timely and expansive in scope, the volume reframes the history of the region and foregrounds photography’s complicity—as well as its potential—in shaping environmental understanding. It speaks to anyone attuned to the urgent environmental conversations defining the contemporary American West.

With an afterword by Robin Kelsey.

Monica Bravo

Monica Bravo is Assistant Professor of the History and Theory of Photography in the Department of Art and Archaeology at Princeton University.

Carolin Görgen

Carolin Görgen is Associate Professor of American Studies at Sorbonne Université and a junior member of the Institut Universitaire de France.

Alan Braddock

Alice Cazenave

Emily Cornish

Binh Danh

Mercedes Dorame

Yves Figueiredo

Elizabeth Hutchinson

Robin Kelsey

Emilia Mickevicius

Katherine Mintie

Andrés Pardo Piccone

Jordan Reznick

Cara Romero

Martha Sandweiss

Jennifer Tucker

Will Wilson

Interdisciplinary and cutting-edge, Ecologies of Photography in the American West illuminates the powerful nexus between visual culture and environmental history. - Finis Dunaway, Trent University

Going far beyond conventional discussions of photographs of the American West, this volume includes indigenous perspectives and addresses colonial relations, discusses photochemistry and the legacies of extraction, and make vividly evident the many connections between images and the material, environmental and social relations that lie behind them. - Michelle Henning, University of Liverpool

At once a critique of received norms (the canon) and forms (the Western landscape), the volume develops compelling new avenues of inquiry while foregrounding Indigenous epistemologies. - Karl Kusserow, Princeton University Art Museum

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