Author ｜
Li Xiao-yu
Abstract ｜
Revolution, a political reality in China in the 20th century, now becomes a cultural-political topic under the contemporary’s communicational framework. Under such circumstances, the most crucial question on revolution lies in its description logic, material organization and the method of presentation to the public. This article focuses on the photography album China in Revolution: The Road to 1911, investigating how Xinhai Revolution was represented in a vernacular cultural sphere, and discussing how the war photography shot by the foreigners in late-Qing was used as raw materials to construct the meta-historical definition of revolution, as well as how to produce the new themes by constructing the literary discussion structure, selecting photos and rewriting their original meaning. This cultural-political analysis could help us to understand the revolution narration in the post-revolution era and the complex relationship among history narration, knowledge structure, text description and photography.
keywords ｜
Late Qing Photography, revolution, humiliation, history narrating, meaning adapted