UC Santa Barbara

The aim of this study is to show that Orientalism is produced by an intersection of multiple discourses, combining social, political, material and imaginative processes, and that the work of Armenian photographers, seen in proper perspective, represents not just another interesting manifestation of Orientalism, but a means with which to approach the entire issue of Orientalism anew and to amass the floating particles of untouched, yet flagrant information, towards a more satisfactory model for its understanding. Armenians, as outsiders within an Islamic world, were always outside the power structures of the communities within which they lived and worked (in this study, particularly Cairo, Jerusalem and Istanbul). Armenian photography studios, active in these major cities from the 1850s onwards, provided the images that undergirded the Orientalist production of European artists. A study of these photographers and photographs suggests the ways in which no simple binaries operated within the construction of Orientalism.