Albert J. Raboteau, Slave Religion: The "Invisible Institution" in the Antebellum South (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978)
Christine Leigh Heyrman, Southern Cross: The Beginnings of the Bible Belt (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998)
Paul E. Johnson and Sean Wilentz, The Kingdom of Matthias: A Story of Sex and Salvation in Nineteenth-Century America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995)
Robert H. Abzug, Cosmos Crumbling: American Reform and the Religious Imagination (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994)
Susan Juster, Doomsayers: Anglo-American Prophecy in the Age of Revolution (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003)
Nathan Hatch, The Democratization of American History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991)
Gregory Evans Dowd, A Spirited Resistance: The North American Indian Struggle for Unity, 1745-1815 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992)
Patricia U. Bonomi, Under the Cope of Heaven: Religion, Society, and Politics in Colonial America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003)
Andrew R. Murray, Conscience and Community: Revisiting Toleration and Religious Dissent in Early Modern England and America (State College, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2001)
David D. Hall, Worlds of Wonder, Days of Judgment: Popular Religious Belief in Early New England (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989) Filed under: Uncategorized
I am intrigued with the ability of Photoshop to manipulate images, and yet I continue to question the authenticity of image manipulation on a couple of different levels. In class Professor Petrik mentioned three reasons for image use: Archival, Illustrative History, and Decorative Design. Each purpose is important–digital preservation, visual historical analysis, and incredible design. In this class we will probably not cover digital preservation. In my MA program, though, I had a preservation class as part of my certificate in archival management. Thought I appreciate the use of images in different ways and I understand and celebrate the strength of visual history, I tend to fear the power of image manipulation. I wonder if images should be manipulated for historical evidence–certainly for design. I think Mark Stevens raises some important questions along this line, to which I have responded.
Our reading for this week illustrates several different ways to manipulate images. I enjoyed reading about Greg Story’s ideas expanding design to include historic shapes–signs, logos, and mastheads. And I thought Dave Rau and Josh Bertrand had valuable input with efforts to mimic the real world–”tasty splotches, drips, folds, splats, stains, rips, and tears.”
Cameron Moll’s blog Wornamental, Thornamental opens up a whole new strategy: instead of cleaning things up in an image, he seems to be encouraging the historical feel by wearing things down. Tools such as grunge brushes, ragged edges, and pixelation all add in this wearing down process.
So where’s the balance between a clean, finished, professional look and an authentic historic ambiance? I have a feeling that it comes with experience and clean coding, as discussed in Petrik’s essay. And I heartily agree with Laura–that it takes playing around with images and the techniques rather than just reading about them. Any other ideas?
