Womens Agency and Ontology in Nineteenth-Century Iranian Photography - A Mirror for Princesses

This study argues that photographs from Qajar Iran (1785-1925) of harem women, royal women, and public women, such as sex workers, musicians, singers, and dancers, make profound statements on the institution of the harem in a time of flux and modernization.Depictions of the harem in photographs shifted the scopic regime of power and made visible an Iranian "Sultanate of Women," which produced a short succession of formidable, driven women. These photographs became instrumental as a "mirror for princesses," in which women consolidated their political control by fashioning their images, constructing pictures of female rule, leaving a legacy and blueprint for future heads of harem, and bolstering their positions within the harem, the court, the state, and the global arena. Thus, photography played a major role as an ontic condition that would further reformulate perceptions of harem women's ontological Being in the world, resulting in photographic evidence of their perceived agency. By the late nineteenth century, however, the institution of the harem began to wane, and women's search for political influence had to shift to photographs that were marked distinctly and visibly as "anti-harem."This book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, history of photography, gender studies, and Iranian studies.

Product details

• Authors: Staci Gem Scheiwiller, Staci Gem (California State Universit Scheiwiller
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd.
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Release: 29.04.2025, delayed
• EAN: 9781032884202
• ISBN: 978-1-0-3288420-2
• No. of pages: 222
• Series: Routledge History of Photography
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Art > General, dictionaries; Natural sciences, medicine, IT, technology > Geosciences > Geography; Iran, Photography & photographs, History, Sociology, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Sociology / General, The arts: general issues, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Gender Studies, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Regional Studies, ART / History / General, HISTORY / Women, PHOTOGRAPHY / History, History of art / art & design styles, 19th century, c 1800 to c 1899, History of Art, Regional Studies, Social and cultural history, Regional / International studies, Gender studies, gender groups, Gender studies: women and girls, Art forms, Photography and photographs, The Arts: art forms, The arts: general topics