Research Symposium

BIO

Samantha is an art history major from Jacksonville, Florida. She is interested in research involving history and photography, and enjoys drawing and painting in her spare time.

Representations of Spirituality in Postcards

Abstract

The purpose of this project is to utilize cards available in the FSU card archive to analyze the ways different forms of spirituality are presented. While depictions of Christian faiths are most common, I aimed to focus on the less popularly depicted belief systems to compare and contrast them with one another. To do this, I searched the archive using many terms that were related to different religions. After finding a sizeable body of cards, organized them into different categories and noted the different qualities of each one. I was able to find cards related to Buddhism, Christianity, Mormonism, Judaism, Taoism, and the practices of the Hopi people. After organizing the cards, I found that many of them utilized similar conventions even if depicting different faiths, provided that the subject matter was similar. Cards that were certifiably made for an American audience focused on the differences between Americans and these other cultures, often referenced in the captions on the back of the cards. Postcards are a very limited medium because they cannot capture many of the nuances of spirituality, but they are useful in depicting the spectacle of religion.

Keywords: postcard, religion, history, photography