Burning with Desire: The Conception of Photography
Citation
Batchen, Geoffrey. Burning with Desire: The Conception of Photography. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1997. xii + 273 pp. ISBN 0-262-02427-6 (hardcover); 0-262-52259-4 (paperback).
Relevance
Batchen’s first major book-length intervention in photography theory. Drawing on Foucault’s archaeological method and Derrida’s deconstruction, Batchen examines the desire to photograph as a cultural formation that precedes and exceeds the technical “invention” of photography in 1839. In doing so he critiques both positivist (formalist) and postmodernist approaches to photography’s history, arguing that both share an Enlightenment faith in the stable, singular moment of photographic origination.
While Burning with Desire is not primarily focused on The Family of Man, it is part of the theoretical terrain occupied by Sandeen-era reception scholarship: Batchen’s engagement with photography’s canonical history includes questioning what counts as “legitimate” photography history, thereby contextualizing the critical tradition (Sontag 1977, Sekula 1981, Solomon-Godeau 1991) within which the critical reassessment of FoM unfolds. Secondary scholarship (cited in a WebSearch result; source not directly fetched) credits Batchen with treating “the controversial reception history of Edward Steichen’s The Family of Man exhibition” as illustrative of core aspects of photography’s performativity.
Tier 2: MIT Press academic university press. Batchen is a recognized authority in photography theory and history.
Key excerpts / pages
- Access status (2026-04-30): Internet Archive URL (
https://archive.org/details/burningwithdesir0000batc) fetched successfully. The page returned bibliographic metadata: author (Geoffrey Batchen), title (Burning with desire: the conception of photography), year (1997), publisher (The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts), ISBN (0262024276), page count (273 pages, xii + 273 p.), subject headings (Photography—History; Photographic criticism), LCCN (97004022). The body text of the book is in the print-disabled collection; not directly read in this round. - Verbatim from the Internet Archive metadata page (fetched 2026-04-30): “Burning with desire: the conception of photography / Geoffrey Batchen” with publisher listed as “The MIT Press” and date as “1997.” This is the metadata-page data, not the book’s body text.
- Specific page-level arguments about The Family of Man NOT verified from a primary fetch in this round.
Notes
- The Internet Archive record was successfully fetched and confirmed the core bibliographic data (author, title, year, publisher, ISBN, page count). This is a confirmed fetch, not a secondary-citation carry.
- Body text is in the print-disabled collection (requires accessibility verification); no CDL borrow completed in this round. Arguments attributed to this book in other entries should cite the specific page range; no page-level citation is verified in this round.
- Cross-reference to
src-sandeen-1995: Batchen’s theoretical project and Sandeen’s historical study both engage with the post-1970s reassessment of photography’s canonical history. Batchen’s critique of the postmodernist reception tradition (Sontag, Sekula, Solomon-Godeau) is directly relevant to the intellectual context within which Sandeen’s historical argument was received. - Cross-reference to
src-sontag-1977,src-sekula-1981,src-solomon-godeau-1991-photography-at-dock: Batchen’s book engages critically with these predecessors. - Cross-reference to
src-october-1976-founding: Burning with Desire emerged partly in dialogue with and as a critique of the October theoretical tradition. verified: false: Internet Archive metadata confirmed (fetched); body text not read (print-disabled, no CDL borrow). Page-level claims about FoM deferred to future CDL session.