In the context in which it appears, “inflation”

In the context in which it appears, “inflation” (line 2) most nearly means The condition of scholarship devoted to the history of women in photography is confounding. Recent years have witnessed the posthumous inflation of the role of the hobbyist Alice Austen into that of a pioneering documentarian while dozens of notable line senior figures—Marion Palfi, whose photographs of civil-rights activities in the South 5 served as early evidence of the need for protective legislation, to name one—received scant attention from scholars. And, while Naomi Rosenblum’s synoptic History of Women Photographers covers the subject through 1920 in a generally useful fashion, once she reaches the 1920s, when the venues, forms, applications, and movements of the medium expanded exponentially, she resorts to an increasingly terse listing of unfamiliar 10 names, with approaches and careers summarized in a sentence or two. exaggeration, acquisition, evaluation, distortion, attenuation

2 Explanations

▲

Uday Saha

Why answer choice (C) elevation doesn't work?
Doesn't elevation means 'giving importance'?

Jul 18, 2017 • Comment

Adam

Hi Uday,

To "elevate" something does mean to "raise to a more important level," but that's not the meaning of "inflate." To "inflate" something here means to "exaggerate" in other words, to make something seem important that in fact is not so important.

Jul 19, 2017 • Reply

▲

Chris Lele