"An ambitious and theoretically challenging study of how photography shapes a new sensory and governmental apparatus of modernity in the colonial context, Afterimage of Empire succeeds in transforming the ways we think about the histories of photography and of colonialism."--David Lloyd, University of Southern California " Afterimage of Empire is a significant and original work of cultural analysis, and an important intervention in our understanding of the sensory and rhetorical dimensions of nineteenth century colonialism."--Iftikhar Dadi, Cornell University " Afterimage of Empire is an astute analysis of photographic material, from the early days of the medium. It is impressive in its ability to move with care through the different scales of analysis--from the minutiae of scattered skulls in the foreground of one photograph to the question of whether a technology transforms both aesthetic form and the viewing subject."--Ranjana Khanna, Duke University "This handsomely produced book will be of great interest to theorists and researchers of early photography and the role of the visual in the formation of colonial discourse."-- Source "This volume is heavily documented, and an exemplar of interdisciplinarity: shuttling effortlessly between phenomenological philosophy, photography, literary, postcolonial and affect theory, Chaudhary elucidates the historical, political and aesthetic formation of the senses during the latter half of the 19th century. "-- Reviews in History " Afterimage of Empire is a crucial text that advances visual culture studies in the Indian subcontinent but it will also be of interest to scholars and students in the disciplines of art, modernism and cinema."-- Leonardo Reviews "This book offers an unprecedented phenomenological reading of the history of colonial rule in India and of colonialism mediated through photography.

"-- History of Photography "The exemplary strength of this book is its ability to outline the historical grounds for well-known images, while at the same time convincing us that this grounding is always open to change and can never be predicted in advance."-- Victorian Studies "Chaudhary's Afterimage of Empire is an extensive study which undoubtedly opens up reflection not only on the role of photography in the Indian subcontinent but on the cultural and sensorial changes brought by modernity both in the Western and non-Western worlds."-- New Asia Books.