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"Passport Photos is a radiant text. It connects its own ironic lyricism with an acute awareness of historical context, and is a moving document of the questions posed by symbolic migration."—Sara Suleri Goodyear, author of Meatless Days
"Amitava Kumar brings his talents as a photographer, poet, scriptwriter, and journalist to the job of critical commentary, refusing to partition and delegate these skills to separate provinces of his intellectual life. The result is an ethical voice and a technical style that often defies our expectations of the critical commentator. I find that voice and style immensely appealing, no more so than in the multi-genre documentary work of Passport Photos. This is not a heavy-handed screed on the conditions of immigrants. It is a sensuous guide to the common contradictions and experiences faced by immigrants to the U.S., whether they are coming from the underside of the international division of labor or from well-heeled and credentialed birthrights. An undeniably original contribution to several academic and journalistic fields, Passport Photos will, I expect, be a widely-acclaimed publication and much cited as a fresh paradigm-shaker."—Andrew Ross, author of The Celebration Chronicles
"An important, timely, and unique book that seems to have multiple lines of descent--as if postcolonial theory were cross-pollinated with poetry, photojournalism, and memoir all at once."—Michael Bérubé, author of Life As We Know It: A Father, a Family, and an Exceptional Child
"Amitava Kumar is the most grounded of the postcolonial writers today. Passport Photos is a brilliant illustration of his skills. A must read for anybody interested in immigration, transnational identities, and globalization."—Manthia Diawara, author of In Search of Africa
"Passport Photos is a meditation on the modalities of the immigrant: on language as law and record of living immigrant dailiness; on place as a world one loses that gives rise to identity and belonging; on knowledge as the possession of some and not others, as what the immigrant can be but cannot have." Lisa Lowe, author of Immigrant Acts
List of contents
Preface
Introduction
Language
Photograph
Name
Place of Birth
Date of Birth
Profession
Nationality
Sex
Identifying Marks
Conclusion
Appendix 1
Appendix 2
Notes
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Credits
Index
About the author
Amitava Kumar is Associate Professor of English at the University of Florida, and has been a Fellow at Yale University. He is the editor of Class Issues: Pedagogy, Cultural Studies, and the Public Sphere (1997), and Poetics/Politics: Radical Aesthetics for the Classroom (1999). Kumar was the script-writer and narrator for the award-winning documentary film Pure Chutney (1998).
Summary
This volume, organized as a passport, combines theory, poetry, cultural criticism and photography to explore the complexities of the immigration experience, intervening in the impersonal language of the state.
