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Picturing Culture
Explorations of Film and Anthropology
by Jay Ruby
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Book Presentation:
Here, Jay Ruby—a founder of visual anthropology—distills his thirty-year exploration of the relationship of film and anthropology. Spurred by a conviction that the ideal of an anthropological cinema has not even remotely begun to be realized, Ruby argues that ethnographic filmmakers should generate a set of critical standards analogous to those for written ethnographies. Cinematic artistry and the desire to entertain, he argues, can eclipse the original intention, which is to provide an anthropological representation of the subjects.
The book begins with analyses of key filmmakers (Robert Flaherty, Robert Garner, and Tim Asch) who have striven to generate profound statements about human behavior on film. Ruby then discusses the idea of research film, Eric Michaels and indigenous media, the ethics of representation, the nature of ethnography, anthropological knowledge, and film and lays the groundwork for a critical approach to the field that borrows selectively from film, communication, media, and cultural studies. Witty and original, yet intensely theoretical, this collection is a major contribution to the field of visual anthropology.
See the publisher website: University of Chicago Press
> From the same author:
Image Ethics (1991)
The Moral Rights of Subjects in Photographs, Film, and Television
Dir. Larry Gross, John Stuart Katz and Jay Ruby
Subject: Sociology
> On a related topic:
Mediating Mobility (2016)
Visual Anthropology in the Age of Migration
by Steffen Köhn
Subject: Sociology
Observational Cinema (2009)
Anthropology, Film, and the Exploration of Social Life
by Anna Grimshaw and Amanda Ravetz
Subject: Sociology
Global Perspectives on Indigenous Film and Literature (2025)
Dir. Amar Ramesh Wayal and Anupama A. P.
Subject: Sociology
Wondrous Difference (2002)
Cinema, Anthropology, and Turn-of-the-Century Visual Culture
Subject: Sociology
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