Joseph W. Ho (Albion College)

Cameras and visual technologies accompanied American missionaries as they undertook cultural, political, and religious projects in Republican China through the first years of the People’s Republic. These evolving visual practices and products, however, ultimately escaped their missionary mold and entered global imaginations, coloring American views of modern China alongside Chinese engagements with the world. In this talk, Professor Ho explores intersections between image-making, contested identities, and transnational ways of seeing – many of which transformed 20th century Sino-US encounters on both sides of the lens.