An interdisciplinary scholar, I study the relationship between politics and culture, and am especially interested in the role that visual media has played in shaping the history of race and racism, Black history, and the history of American democracy.
My first book, Exposing Slavery: Photography, Human Bondage, and the Birth of Modern Visual Politics in America (OUP, 2019), explores the historical relation between photography and slavery in the United States.
Currently, I am working on two major projects. The first is a book that examines how presidential administrations have used photography for political purposes — especially during moments of social and racial conflict. The second project explores the memory of American slavery in photography and other forms of visual culture.
My work has been generously supported by organizations including the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Social Science Research Council, Clements Center-DeGolyer Library at SMU, Virginia Historical Society, Frances S. Summersell Center for the Study of the South at the University of Alabama, American Antiquarian Society, the Massachusetts Historical Society, Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, and the Harry S. Truman Library and Museum.
Other publications include the following:
Articles, chapters, essays, roundtables
“‘Portraits Torn to Shreds’: Iconoclasm and the Destruction of Confederate Memory,” in Civil War History, December 2023
Invited Roundtable Participant in Civil War History, Roundtable about Deborah Willis’s The Black Soldier: A Visual History of Conflict and Citizenship (December 2022), with David W. Blight, Jim Downs, Cheryl Finley, Sarah Elizabeth Lewis, Nell Painter, Ann M. Shumard, and Deborah Willis.
“Claiming the Past, Possessing the Park: The Forest Park Confederate Memorial and the Occupation of Public Space,” in The Material World of Modern Segregation: St. Louis in the Long Era of Ferguson, eds. Iver Bernstein and Heidi Kolk (The Common Reader, April 2022)
“Portraits of Endurance: Enslaved People and Vernacular Photography in the Antebellum South,” in To Make Their Way in the World: The Enduring Legacy of the Zealy Daguerreotypes, eds. Deborah Willis, Molly Rogers, and Ilisa Barbash (Peabody Museum Press, Harvard University and Aperture Foundation, August 2020).
“Plantation Tourism,” in Paper Promises: Early American Photography, ed. Mazie Harris (Getty Publications, 2018).
“An Abolitionist Daguerreotype, 1850,” in Getting the Picture: The Visual Culture of the News, eds. Vanessa R. Schwartz and Jason Hill (Bloomsbury Press, 2015).
Reviews
Review in H-Material Culture of Tiya Miles, All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake (Random House, 2021). May 2024.
Review in Journal of the Early Republic of Teresa A. Goddu, Selling Antislavery: Abolition and Mass Media in Antebellum America (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2020). Spring 2022.
Review in American Historical Review, Review Roundtable of Ambivalent: Photography and Visibility in African History (Ohio State University Press, 2019). December 2021.
Review in History of Photography of Tanya Sheehan, A Study in Black and White: Photography, Race, Humor (Penn State University Press, 2018). July 2020.
Review in Journal of Southern History of Frederick C. Moffatt, Paintbrush for Hire: The Travels of James and Emma Cameron, 1840-1900 (University of Tennessee Press, 2018). Vol. 85, no. 3, August 2019.
Review in Common-place of Maurie D. McInnis, Slaves Waiting for Sale: Abolitionist Art and the American Slave Trade (University of Chicago Press, 2011). Vol. 13, No. 1.5, November 2012.