THE CRUEL RADIANCE: PHOTOGRAPHY AND POLITICAL VIOLENCE

By Susie Linfield

Documenting suffering raises hard ethical and political questions for photographers and viewers. Journalism professor Susie Linfield works through some of these questions in three steps: by responding to critics of photography as a documentary medium; by examining ideas of human rights in the context of photographing violence, from the Holocaust to Abu Ghraib; and finally, by anchoring her discussion in the practices of three noted war photographers. We must ask ourselves: Are there photographs that should never be made? And if they are made, how should we respond? 2012, 344 pages $25.00 Paperback / $20.00 Kobo e-book www.chapters.indigo.ca