Projects

The Family Camera Network

THE FAMILY CAMERA NETWORK is a partnership that explores the relationship between photography and the idea of family. In Canada, our understanding of family has expanded in response to cultural shifts including same-sex marriage, transnational adoptions, dislocations due to political instability and war, and for economic opportunity.

Photography and the Optical Unconscious

Duke University Press, 2017
Photography and the Optical Unconscious
Edited by Shawn Michelle Smith and Sharon Sliwinski

Cold War Visual Alliances

Visual Studies, Special Issue, June 2015
This is a special issue of the journal Visual Studies, guest edited by Andrea Noble, and seminar members, Sarah Bassnett and Thy Phu.

Cold War Camera conference

Guatemala City, February 21-23, 2014
This three-day conference, exploring photography’s relationship to the Cold War and its aftermath, developed out of a two-year collaborative network between the Toronto Photography Seminar and Durham Centre for Advanced Photography Studies and is funded by the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council.

The Photographic Situation Project

SSHRC Partnership Development Grant, 2011-14
This funded, collaborative research project began its life as “Photography and the Transnational Politics of Affect,” a networking project that linked photo scholars in the U.S., U.K. and Canada. In January 2012 we renamed this collaboration “The Photographic Situation Project,” after the work of Ariella Azoulay. Parts of our group are meeting in September 2012 in Toronto; in December 2012 at Rutgers; and in January 2013 at the Durham Centre for Advanced Photography Studies, Durham UK. We’ve produced a short document discussing what we mean by “the photographic situation,” which acts as a framing device for our work together; you can find it below, along with a list of participants and further information about the project.

Feeling Photography, edited collection

Editors: Elspeth Brown and Thy Phu; 2014, Duke University Press
This collection of essays emerged from a 2009 conference of the same name, organized by the seminar, and held at the University of Toronto.

Affecting Photographies, edited journal issue

Photography and Culture, Special Issue, Nov 2009
A special issue of the journal Photography and Culture, edited by seminar members Thy Phu and Linda M. Steer, that addressed the historical and theoretical relationship between photography and affect.

Feeling Photography conference

University of Toronto, 2009

Feeling Photography was an international conference held at the Centre for the Study of the United States, University of Toronto, in the fall of 2009. Plenary speakers included Lisa Cartwright, Ann Cvetkovich, David Eng, Marianne Hirsch, Leo Spitzer, Christopher Pinney, Shawn Michelle Smith, and Diana Taylor. The conference featured four concurrent sessions over two days; the conference program can be downloaded here. An excerpt from the call for papers, below, describes the conference’s goals.

Circulation, edited journal issue

History of Photography, Special Issue, June 2008

A special issue of History of Photography, edited by seminar members Thy Phu and Matthew Brower, that addressed the changing interpretations of photographs as they circulate.

Grant: International Opportunities Fund (SSHRC)

Social Science and Humanities Research Council, 2007-09
This was a two-year SSHRC-funded collaborative grant designed to link the members of the Toronto Photography Seminar with scholars outside of Canada. The focus of the grant was on “Affect and Photojournalism,” and resulted in eleven single-authored articles; one guest-edited special issue; an international conference; and two co-edited books.

Toronto Photography Seminar   info@torontophotographyseminar.org