PhD Oral Exam - Stéphanie Hornstein

When studying for a doctoral degree (PhD), candidates submit a thesis that provides a critical review of the current state of knowledge of the thesis subject as well as the student’s own contributions to the subject. The distinguishing criterion of doctoral graduate research is a significant and original contribution to knowledge.

Once accepted, the candidate presents the thesis orally. This oral exam is open to the public.

Abstract

This dissertation investigates patterns that find expression in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century photographs of Egypt and Japan. It is argued that, with the intensification of imperial activity and the rise of mass tourism, these countries became twin beacons for the Western world’s fascination with the Orient.

The period of study ranges from the 1850s to the outbreak of the First World War. Drawing on a variety of photographic materials from this era—including commercial prints, snapshots, stereographs, book illustrations, postcards, etc.—a selection of visual tropes is examined to shed light on common cultural stereotypes and image-making practices. Because photographs of Egypt and Japan were profoundly influenced by the literary tradition of the travelogue, the images under investigation are interpreted through the writing that framed them in a manner that recognizes text and image as two components of the same discursive whole.

Adopting an iconographic approach, each of the dissertation’s thematic chapters is dedicated to a prevalent photographic motif. The first is concerned with representations of monumental sculpture, the second with images of marketplaces and commodities, and the third with portraits of travellers dressed in local costume. Attending to the repetitiveness of this formulaic imagery is crucial as it reveals the self-sustaining structure of the Orientalist imagination. This is how countries as dissimilar as Egypt and Japan—culturally, politically, and geographically—could be conflated in photographic representations that positioned the Orient as the topsy-turvy counterpart of an ordered, modern, and moral Occidental civilization.