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Right: Portraits from the Evangelical Ivy League
Patrick Henry College is the higher education institution of choice among politically far-right young people aspiring to enter the conservative power elite. The explicit mission of PHC is to cultivate leaders to take American politics and culture back to God, through careers in politics and entertainment. Acclaimed photographer Jona Frank presents an honest, intimate, and eye-opening portrait of the school and its students. Frank's photos eschew cultural politicking of the left or the right, allowing readers to draw their own conclusions about a school and a youth movement with the potential to produce many of tomorrow's leaders.
128 pages, Hardcover
First published October 15, 2008
20 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
February 10, 2011
As scary as it is straight-forward, Jona Frank's book portrays suit-or-dress-wearing christians at "God's Harvard", as the founder of Patrick Henry College would like to call it, a newly built center for education of people who think the bible is inerrant.
Of course, this poses more problems and questions than the number of characters I will use to review this book.
But let's not forget the pictures. In this case, they actually do say a lot more than many words. And Jona Frank has taken her pictures thoughtfully, respectfully and brilliantly. They shine. So what are they of?
Youths who are primed, sculpted and used to cast christianity forth into Hollywood and Washington - the two main cities they're aiming for - are on display in their home, at school, working as interns and having fun. Still, I can't help being gripped by the sense that they all seem to have skipped some elemental stages of growing up. They all seem like little kids in their parents' clothing.
Even the fact that a lot of teachers at the college got kicked out for teaching something akin to science is pretty far-flung. Let's read about the spaghetti monster, shall we?
Yes, it's a sect. Yes, disguised as fact. But they're venturing forth, brave christian soldiers, built to last and to procreate. The picture of Rachel on pages 30-31 are scary. At first, you see an 18-year-old girl on her way to this college, semi-messy, seemingly alive. The second picture displays a tightly clad young career-driven woman. Of course I read badness into this picture and have only myself to blame for it, but once you realise that she's had to sign a paper saying God's word is inerrant and final, you're (hopefully) a little scared, too.
The pictures of the manuals which the women living on campus must adhere to, of the bumper sticker on a car saying "Smile! You could have been aborted" while giving love to Bush/Cheney '04, a piece of text saying that George W. Bush's administration paid for an entire class to fly to see them...it's all boggling.
The technique applied when photographing the book is brilliant. The constant sense of humanity, warmth, contrast, depth, clarity and perspective is great. The family portraits and the different parts of the book, e.g. "hoedown" and "interns" are wonderful.
I'll recommend this book to anybody.
Of course, this poses more problems and questions than the number of characters I will use to review this book.
But let's not forget the pictures. In this case, they actually do say a lot more than many words. And Jona Frank has taken her pictures thoughtfully, respectfully and brilliantly. They shine. So what are they of?
Youths who are primed, sculpted and used to cast christianity forth into Hollywood and Washington - the two main cities they're aiming for - are on display in their home, at school, working as interns and having fun. Still, I can't help being gripped by the sense that they all seem to have skipped some elemental stages of growing up. They all seem like little kids in their parents' clothing.
Even the fact that a lot of teachers at the college got kicked out for teaching something akin to science is pretty far-flung. Let's read about the spaghetti monster, shall we?
Yes, it's a sect. Yes, disguised as fact. But they're venturing forth, brave christian soldiers, built to last and to procreate. The picture of Rachel on pages 30-31 are scary. At first, you see an 18-year-old girl on her way to this college, semi-messy, seemingly alive. The second picture displays a tightly clad young career-driven woman. Of course I read badness into this picture and have only myself to blame for it, but once you realise that she's had to sign a paper saying God's word is inerrant and final, you're (hopefully) a little scared, too.
The pictures of the manuals which the women living on campus must adhere to, of the bumper sticker on a car saying "Smile! You could have been aborted" while giving love to Bush/Cheney '04, a piece of text saying that George W. Bush's administration paid for an entire class to fly to see them...it's all boggling.
The technique applied when photographing the book is brilliant. The constant sense of humanity, warmth, contrast, depth, clarity and perspective is great. The family portraits and the different parts of the book, e.g. "hoedown" and "interns" are wonderful.
I'll recommend this book to anybody.
December 23, 2008
For many viewers, Jona Frank's photography will bring to life a key segment of American evangelicalism. For many others, I fear, it may reinforce superficial judgments. Frank herself is an outsider to the subculture represented here, and this is evident (to me) in her shots. The photographs are revealing enough and beautiful, however, and Frank does her best to penetrate the barrier established by the studied otherness of fundamentalist discourse. Her success is mixed but considerable, and I highly recommend the book. It is best viewed as a companion to the New Yorker article by Hanna Rosin that inspired it. (Rosin has also expanded that article into a book,
God's Harvard
.)
I visited Patrick Henry College shortly after its formation, probably in the spring of 2001. To judge by the pictures in Right, the PHC campus is better developed than it was when I visited, but the students are similar. The student body has doubled (to about 300). The school, predictably, has already endured considerable internal controversy. Five of 16 teachers left the school in 2006 after a dispute over academic freedom and over the proper Christian attitude toward philosophy and literature. These controversies are key to the story Frank tells with her photographs and commentary. At the same time, Frank manages to capture not only the students' unusual intensity and earnestness but also, in a few cases, glimpses of the way their universal self-awareness can lend itself to a playful sense of irony and a strongly expressed individuality that Frank herself, living outside their culture, understands imperfectly.
I visited Patrick Henry College shortly after its formation, probably in the spring of 2001. To judge by the pictures in Right, the PHC campus is better developed than it was when I visited, but the students are similar. The student body has doubled (to about 300). The school, predictably, has already endured considerable internal controversy. Five of 16 teachers left the school in 2006 after a dispute over academic freedom and over the proper Christian attitude toward philosophy and literature. These controversies are key to the story Frank tells with her photographs and commentary. At the same time, Frank manages to capture not only the students' unusual intensity and earnestness but also, in a few cases, glimpses of the way their universal self-awareness can lend itself to a playful sense of irony and a strongly expressed individuality that Frank herself, living outside their culture, understands imperfectly.
September 3, 2015
Beautiful, arresting portraits accompanied by revealing interviews of students at Patrick Henry College, a sort of ivy league of the religious right wing that attracts mainly homeschooled students. There but for the grace of God...
September 19, 2012
Good companion piece to the book God's Harvard.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews