Abstract
When examining an image, a viewer often focuses on what they see and less often on what they are able to see. Nowhere is this as true, and as problematic, as it is with the visual representation of persons of African descent. This study describes how problematic photographic representation was used as a powerful semiotic tool in the Victorian age conquest of the other, was exported to early Hollywood (creating a lucrative hate-based industry), and was then pushed back into the cultural recesses, settling finally into systemic forms of modern oppression, empowered by the invisibility of whiteness. Images from the RIT archives serve as the text, multiple theories serve as the framework, and Barthes’ cultural semiotic contextual method of analysis serves as the tool with which to understand the images - revealing a complex portrait of power and privilege.
Library of Congress Subject Headings
African Americans--Portraits--History; Portrait photography--History and criticism; Rochester Institute of Technology--Archives; Visual communication--Philosophy; Racism in art; Racism in education
Publication Date
8-12-2017
Document Type
Thesis
Student Type
Graduate
Degree Name
Communication and Media Technologies (MS)
Department, Program, or Center
School of Communication (CLA)
Advisor
Andrea Hickerson
Advisor/Committee Member
Grant Cos
Advisor/Committee Member
Jonathan Schroeder
Recommended Citation
James, Andrew, "Searching for Color in Black & White: Epistemic Closure, the RIT Archives, and the Colonial Roots of White Invisibility" (2017). Thesis. Rochester Institute of Technology. Accessed from
https://repository.rit.edu/theses/9537
Campus
RIT – Main Campus
Plan Codes
COMMTCH-MS
