The (Mis)Representation of Reality: ‘Knowledge’ and Image-Making in Glass Lantern Slides of China

The Royal Asiatic Society in London houses a collection of magic lantern slides of China dating from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. By investigating a selection of lantern slides, this article explores their epistemological nature and their wider relations to socio-cultural and political systems of power. These lantern slides highlight the complexity of our ways of seeing and representing that are embedded into particular historical and ideological systems in which meaning is both shaped and negotiated. This article argues that images are powerful conduits in disseminating and, if unchallenged, maintaining particular notions and ideas.