Ph.D.   Binghamton University (2004)
MA      York University (1998)
BA      York University (1996)
BAA    Ryerson University (1993)

Research

Interests

My research focuses on nineteenth and twentieth-century art and visual culture in North America. Informed by Foucauldian discourse analysis, I understand visual representations as important sites where meaning and power effects are produced. In particular, I am interested in the way images have been used to support social ideals and political agendas, which means my research intersects with studies on ethnicity and gender issues. I teach undergraduate and graduate courses and supervise graduate students in the following fields: the history and theory of photography, Canadian and American art and architecture, contemporary art, and museum and exhibition history and theory.

Current projects

Photography and the Urbanization of Toronto, 1890-1920 is a SSHRC-funded project that looks at how photography was used as a persuasive tool in re-imagining and reshaping the city during an intense period of urbanization and modernization. Photographs were at the heart of debates about what the city should look like, how it should operate, who should live in what area, and under what kinds of conditions it was appropriate for people to live. Used as evidence of everything from the substandard housing adjacent to city hall to the lack of playground facilities for children, photographs circulated in newspapers and government reports, playing a crucial role in cultivating anxiety about the city’s rapid growth and changing demographics. At the same time, however, photographs were also central to the way city officials reassured citizens that they were in control. Photographs of the urban landscape seemed to render a complex, heterogeneous environment into a manageable form and were used by city officials to establish their authority over development decisions. This study brings to light the conflicts and struggles involved in the process of urbanization, as well as anxieties about changes, such as the disintegration of class boundaries. It shows that, time and time again, photographs played a central role in the struggle for control over the city’s development.

The exhibition, Picturing Immigrants in the Ward: How photography shaped ideas about Central and Eastern European immigrants in early 20th-century Toronto, which addresses one aspect of the larger project, is on display at the City of Toronto Archives Gallery from June 22, 2012 to the end of May 2013.

Collaborative Research Project

The Toronto Photography Seminar is a group of academics and curators from universities in Southern Ontario. We have been meeting regularly since 2004 to conduct research on the history and theory of photography. We have collaborated on a guest issue on “circulation” for the History of Photography journal (guest editors, Matthew Brower and Thy Phu, summer 2008) and on a guest issue on “affecting photographies” for Photography and Culture (guest editors, Thy Phu and Linda Steer, November, 2009). 

Funded by a three-year SSHRC Partnership Development Grant, the Toronto Photography Seminar is currently developing international partnerships with the Durham Centre for Advanced Photography Studies, and The Developing Room, Rutgers University. This research partnership is examining the photographic situation through four thematic clusters: (in)visibility, (dis)identification, economies, and affect.

Selected Publications

“Shooting Immigrants: Ethnic Difference in Early Twentieth-Century Press Photography.” The Cultural Work of Photography in Canada, 106-119. Ed. Carol Payne and Andrea Kunard. Montreal; Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2011.

“Archive and Affect in Contemporary Photography,” Photography and Culture 2, no. 3(November 2009): 241-252.

“Picturing the Professionalization of Planning in Canada, 1901-1927.” In Journal of the Society for the Study of Architecture in Canada, 33, no. 2 (2008): 21-32.

"From Public Relations to Art: Exhibiting Frances Benjamin Johnston’s Hampton Institute Photographs." In History of Photography 32, no. 2 (summer 2008): 152-168.

“British Library” and “Exhibitions of Photography.” In Encyclopedia of 19th Century Photography, ed. John Hannavy, 215-217 and 508-510. London; New York: Routledge, 2007.

“Visuality and the Emergence of City Planning in Early Twentieth-Century Toronto and Montreal.” In Journal of the Society for the Study of Architecture in Canada 32, no. 1 (2007): 21-38.

“Picturing Filth and Disorder: Photography and Urban Governance in Toronto.” In History of Photography 28, no. 2 (summer 2004): 149-164.

Exhibition Curated

Bassnett, Sarah and Patrick Mahon. Picturing Immigrants in the Ward: How photography shaped ideas about Central and Eastern European immigrants in early 20th-century Toronto. City of Toronto Archives Gallery. June 21, 2012 – May 2013.

Selected Book Reviews

Review of Miller Brittain: When the Stars Threw Down Their Spears, by Tom Smart. Goose Lane Press, 2007. University of Toronto Quarterly, “Letters in Canada 2007” (winter 2008).

Review of The Corporate Eye: Photography and the Rationalization of American Commercial Culture, by Elspeth Brown. Baltimore; London: The John Hopkins University Press, 2005. History of Photography 30, no. 2 (summer 2006): 177-179.

Review of Manufactured Landscapes: The Photographs of Edward Burtynsky, by Lori Pauli. New Haven: Yale University Press with the National Gallery of Canada, 2003. RACAR (Revue d’art canadienne / Canadian Art review) 30, no. 1-2 (2005): 126-128.

Review of The 60s: Montreal Thinks Big, edited by André Lortie. Vancouver; Montreal: Douglas and McIntyre and the Canadian Centre for Architecture, 2004. CAA reviews (October 2005).

Awards, Honours, Grants

2011-2014, SSHRC Partnership Development Grant, collaborator with members of the Toronto Photography Seminar. Project: The Photographic Situation.

2009-2012, SSHRC Standard Research Grant. Project: Photography and the Urbanization of Toronto, 1890-1920.

2007-2009, SSHRC International Opportunities Fund, co-investigator with members of the Toronto Photography Seminar. Project:  Photography and Affect.

Teaching

Recent Courses

VAH 2240 Theories and Practices of Art History and Visual Culture
VAH 2276 Canadian Art
VAH 2282 History of Photography
VAH 4478 Seminar in Contemporary Art
VAH 4482 Seminar in Photography
VAH/S 9500a Art Theory and Criticism in Western Culture
VAH 9555/9655 Photography’s Discursive Spaces
VAH 9579/9679 Photography and Social Crisis
VAH/S 9600a PhD Seminar: Theory and Methods

Graduate Dissertations and Theses Supervised

PH.D. DISSERTATION COMMITTEES

In progress Jennifer Orpana, “Identity and Community in Canadian Youth Photovoice Projects” (chief supervisor)

In progress Colin Miner, “Aesthetics of Evil: The Vampire and The Werewolf” (committee member)

In progress Matthew R. Smith, “Relational Viewing Strategies in Contemporary Autobiographical Visual Art” (chief supervisor)

2011 Andrés Villar, “On the Cusp: Latin American Vanguardias in the Visual Arts” (committee member)

MASTER’S THESIS SUPERVISION

In progress Jordana Franklin, Tracey Emin and Sophie Calle: Private Experiences in Public (chief supervisor), MA.

2010 Jennifer Orpana, “The ’Visual Griots’ of Mali: Nation Building and Cultural Negotiation with Youth Outreach Photography,” (chief supervisor), MA.

2010 Erin Rothstein, “Pablo Picasso and Primitivism: An Exploration of ‘Non-Western’ and Medieval Influences in Les Demoiselles d’Avignon.”(second reader), MA

2008 Maria Szabo, “Kaleidoscope Vision: Modern Perspectives in the Work of Pegi Nicol MacLeod,” (joint supervisor with Bridget Elliott), MA.

2008 Krystle Copeland, “The Annunciation: Visual, Spatial, and Textual Ideologies of Difference in Quattrocento Florence,” (program examiner), MA.

2007 Jennifer Kennedy, “Paris vu Par: New Wave, Modernism and the Cinematic City,” (program examiner), MA.

2006 Bettina Urcuioli, “Materiality and the Aura: Polaroid Photography in the Age of Art’s Technological Reproducibility,” (chief supervisor), MA.

2006 Ayako Kurokawa, “Past Memory, Present Feeling: An Investigation of Postmemory,” (joint supervisor with Patrick Mahon), MFA.

2006 Arnold Koroshegyi, “Beyond the Circle of Confusion: the out-of-focus photograph,” (second reader), MFA.

2006 Adam Stead, “The Visitatio Sepulchri: Acting, Ausstattung and Audience in Medieval Germany,” (program examiner), MA.

2005 Michael Windover, “Living Art Deco Style: An Investigation of Toronto’s Hybrid Modernity,” (second reader), MA.

2005 Carol-Ann Ryan, “Guido Molinari, Claude Tousignant, and Geometric Abstraction in the 1960s: The Canadian Contribution,” (program examiner), MA.

2004 Marc Schilling, “Andy Warhol’s Contaminated Modernism,” (program examiner), MA.