Time Exposures

Time Exposures explores how historical photographs created by and of Chinese Catholic communities illuminate the vicissitudes of China’s transition from empire to modern nation. Relying on an expansive worldwide network of Catholic photographic archives, this book examines largely unseen and unpublished images related to Catholicism in China. These images, made from the 1870s through the 1990s, were central to visual practices and afterlives that represent, recover, and re-envision diverse Chinese experiences. This volume provides insight into the lives of women and men behind and in front of the camera who were important documentarians of China’s local and national changes over time, shaping ways of seeing and belonging to the country’s many cultural evolutions.

Joseph W. Ho is center associate at the Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies and academic program manager of the Eisenberg Institute for Historical Studies at the University of Michigan.

Anthony E. Clark is professor of Chinese history and Edward B. Lindaman Endowed Chair at Whitworth University.

“Time Exposures is a masterpiece. Ho and Clark reveal photographs as dynamic visual evidence, illustrating devotion, charity, architectural exchange, and the upheavals of war and revolution. Their narrative shows how Chinese Catholics enlivened Christianity across geographic, social, and gender divides, setting a new benchmark for studying religious encounters through the camera’s lens.”

—Joseph Tse-Hei Lee, Pace University

“In Time Exposures, Ho and Clark offer a groundbreaking visual history of the Catholic enterprise in China, uniquely centering on rare archival photographs. Building on Ho’s expertise in transnational visual culture and Clark’s scholarship on Sino-Western religious exchange, this volume greatly enhances our understanding of missionary modernity. Many of the images brilliantly illuminate the intimate, lived experiences of Chinese Catholics and Western missionaries, capturing profound moments of faith, conflict, and friendship.”

—Eugenio Menegon, Boston University