Manufactured Images:
The Engravings of 19th-Century Arabic Periodicals
Hala Auji
Synopsis:
Explore the diversity of printed images that became popular in illustrated Arabic journals during the late nineteenth century. These engravings, which included a range of topics from scientific diagrams to illustrations of zebras, exemplify the interconnected nature of the arts and sciences in the age of modernity. Such images also are markers of an artistic modernity that saw the convergence of painting, photography, and print culture.
References:
Auji, Hala. “Printed Images in Flux: Examining Scientific Engravings in Nineteenth-Century Arabic Periodicals.” In Visual Design: The Periodical Page as a Designed Surface. Journalliteratur 1. Edited by Andreas Beck, Nicola Kaminski, Volker Mergenthaler, and Jens Ruchatz. 119–136. Hannover: Wehrhahn Verlag, 2019. 
Auji, Hala. Printing Arab Modernity: Book Culture and the American Press in Nineteenth-Century Beirut. Leiden: Brill, 2016.
Ayalon, Ami. The Arabic Print Revolution: Cultural Production and Mass Readership. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016.
Brummett, Palmira Image and Imperialism in the Ottoman Revolutionary Press, 1908–1911. Albany: SUNY Press, 2000.
Ersoy, Ahmet. “Ottomans and the Kodak Galaxy: Archiving Everyday Life and Historical Space in Ottoman Illustrated Journals.” History of Photography 40, no. 3 (2016): 330–357.
Sheehi, Stephen. “Arabic Literary-Scientific Journals Precedence for Globalization and the Creation of Modernity.” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 25, no.2 (2005): 439–449.
Citation:
Hala Auji, “Manufactured Images: The Engravings of 19th-Century Arabic Periodicals,” Khamseen: Islamic Art History Online, published 9 February 2021.
Hala Auji is an Assistant Professor at the American University of Beirut, where she teaches courses on the art, architecture, and material culture of the Islamic world. Her work focuses on the visual dimensions of modernity in the eastern Mediterranean, including print culture, book history, museum practices, and portraiture. She is the author of Printing Arab Modernity: Book Culture and the American Press in Nineteenth-Century Beirut (Brill, 2016). In addition, she has published articles in Platform, Review of Middle East Studies, Visible Language, and The Journal of Middle East Culture and Communication.