Art, Scientific Discovery, and Visual Imagination

My research explores the nature of vision and visual media in the history of life sciences and medicine, from drawings, etchings, sketches, photographs, and diagrams to X-ray images, computer-generated images, and documentary film.  I am especially interested in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and have published on topics ranging from microscopes and other optical devices, such as cameras and magic lanterns, to ballooning, waxwork museums, and phantasmagoria.

Visiting Appointments
Publications
Media Interviews and Opinion
Exhibitions
Talks and Invited Lectures
Conferences
Professional Roles
Wesleyan University
Community

 

Visiting Appointments

     

    Publications

    Edited Journals/Special Issues

    Articles

    Book Chapters

    Works (Articles & Book Chapters) in Progress

    Editor (Books & Journals)

    Academic Journals Co-editor

     

    Media Interviews and Opinion

     

    Exhibitions

     

    Talks and Invited Lectures

    • Plenary Lecture, Hurter & Driffield Memorial Distinguished Lecture of the Royal Photographic Society, London (September 26, 2021). (Postponed to Sept, 2022) 
    • “Science & New Media: Projecting Visual Stories about the Universe,” for the “Thinking with Scientific Instruments: Explorations in the Material History of Science and Technology” Symposium, Yale MacMillan Institute & Peabody Museum of Natural History, October 2, 2021. 
    • “History of Photography in the Sciences,” workshop presentation, Wissenschaftsgeschichte/History of Science, Institute of Philosophy, University of Regensburg, Germany [Online] (May 12, 2021).  
    • Presenter, Department of Humanities, Università degli Studi di Trento, Trento (UNITN), Italy: “The Politics of Truth and Falsity:  Tracing Photography and Victorian Mental Sciences through Literature, Medicine and Law” [Online] (April 15, 2021). 
    • “Adventures of Victorian Aeronauts,” “Profs and Pints,” [Online] (March 28, 2021). 
    • Keynote, Conference on “The Magic Lantern in Australia and the World,” Australian National University (September 4–8, 2018). 
    • Keynote, “After Post Photography” conference, The European University (Russia), “New faces of privacy: Trans-Atlantic historical and legal perspectives on the circulation of facial images in the media, 1870-1970” (May 18, 2017). 
    • Invited speaker, “Visual Ecologies” conference, California Institute of Technology, “Picturing Pollution: Photography in Environmental Law Suits in Victorian Britain” (May 11–12, 2017). 
    • Invited speaker, Paul Mellon Art Centre (England): “Humphrey Jennings’ ‘Pandaemonium’” (November 30, 2016). 
    • Invited speaker, Visual and Material Cultures Seminar, The Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (UK) (November 11, 2016). 
    • Invited speaker, Centre for Humanities Research, University of the Western Cape (South Africa), “Contemporary History and Humanities” (October 18, 2016). 
    • Keynote, Centre for Humanities Research, University of the Western Cape (South Africa), “Visual Gateways” (October 21–22, 2016). 
    • Keynote, First International LYNX Center for the Interdisciplinary Analysis of Images Conference, Institute for Advanced Visual Studies (Italy) (June 22-25, 2016). 
    • Invited speaker, Centre for Advanced Visual Studies, University of Durham (UK), “Historical Narrative and Victorian Visual Culture” (June 7, 2016). 
    • Presenter, History of Art Department, Yale University, 18th and 19th century Art and Visual Culture Colloquium (February 22, 2016). 
    • Invited speaker, “Popularizing Science East and West” symposium, hosted by the Department of the History and Philosophy of Science, University of Tokyo (March 26–29, 2015).  
    • Invited speaker, “The Impact of Science Institutions on Victorian Visual Culture,” Department of History and Welsh History, Aberystwyth University (Wales) (May 21, 2014). 
    • Invited speaker, “The BAAS and British Visual Culture,” Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge (UK) (May 8, 2014). 
    • Invited speaker, “Technology Studies, Feminist Studies, and Visual Culture,” Women’s Union, Pomona College (October 14, 2009).   
    • Public Gallery Talk (“Art in Context”), “The British Artist-Naturalists at Sea:  Depicting Salt-Water Fish in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World,” Yale Center for British Art (April 10, 2009).   
    • Public Lecture, “Charles Darwin and Victorian Visual Culture,” University of Connecticut-Avery Point (February 10, 2009).    
    • Invited speaker, “Brought to Light:  Photographs of the Invisible, 1840-1900,” San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (December 14, 2008.) 
     

    Conferences

    Organizer/Co-Organizer

    • Organizer, “Law and New Media Technologies, From Print to Digital,” Huntington Library and Art Collections, San Marino, CA, Sept. 16-17, 2022. 
    • Visual Studies and the Liberal Arts, Smith College, (May 2-3, 2014). The conference brought together twenty-five liberal arts faculty and focused on the topic of “Visual Studies across the Curriculum.” Co-organized with Prof. Laura Kalba, Smith College, with support from an Advance Liberal Arts Colleges (AALAC) grant. 
    • “Science a Moving Image,” Hixon-Riggs Public Forum for Responsive Science, Technology and Society, Harvey Mudd College (Spring 2010). A series of talks, roundtables, and film screenings that brought together scientists, filmmakers, writers, movie industry specialists, and scholars to explore the many ways in which science’s moving images interact and intersect, from films used as scientific data to scientific documentaries to the incorporation of scientists and scientific themes in contemporary media.   

    Seminars & Workshops

      • Commentator for the workshop, “Circulation of Images in the Life Sciences,” hosted by the Consortium for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine, Oct. 23, 2021 [Online]. 

      Conference Participant

        • Conference presentation, “Photography at the Nexus of Science and Industry.” Photo: Science/ Photography and Scientific Discourses, Institute of Art History, The Czech Academy of Sciences (November 3–December 2, 2020). 
        • Presenter, Yale Environmental Humanities Workshop: “Aerial Imagination” (April 26-27, 2019).  
        • Panelist, Conference on “Visual Plague: Image, Imagination, & Imaginary,” an interdisciplinary research project led by social anthropologist Dr. Christos Lynteris, University of St. Andrews (Scotland) (July 12-14, 2018). 
        • Panelist, Symposium on “Science, Photography, and the Circulation of Printed Media,” Photographic Memory Workshop, Yale University (April 13–14, 2018).  
        • Panelist, “A Million Pictures: History, Archiving, and Creative Re-Use of Educational Magic Lantern Slides” Conference (The Netherlands) (August 29–September 1, 2017).  
        • Chair, Berkshire Conference of Women Historians, “Bodies and Media: Reproducing and Reshaping Sexuality, Race, and Gender” (June 12, 2011). 
        • Presenter, Andrew W. Mellon 23 Collaboration Seminar, Scripps College, “Feminism and Science: Building Bridges for Research and Teaching Innovation” (January 4–6, 2011). 
        • Presenter, Yale Center for British Art,“Darwin and Victorian Visual Culture” (April 10, 2009). 
        • Presenter, North American Council on British Studies Conference, “Field of Vision: Visual Culture and Modern British History” (November 12–14, 2010).   
         

        Professional Roles

        Professional Associations

        • Society for History of Technology
        • History of Science Society
        • Magic Lantern Society (UK)
        • College Art Association

        Research Networks

         

        Wesleyan University

        Internal Research Grants & Fellowships

        • Center for Pedagogical Innovation Grant ($750) from the Andrew Mellon Foundation to acquire training in Victorian magic lantern show production from Connecticut-based magic lantern slide collector and independent historian, Dick Moore (Fall 2019). 
        • Science across the Curriculum Grant: Designed and co-taught a new undergraduate lecture course, “Interpreting Life on Mars: Scientific Data and Popular Knowledge,” with planetary geologist Martha Gilmore (Spring 2011). 

        Campus & Departmental Talks

          • Exhibition Walk-Through with Ben Chaffee (Associate Director, Visual Arts), Audible Bacillus, Zilkha Contemporary for Contemporary Art (February 19, 2019). 
          • Organizer, Earth Day at Wesleyan: Prof. Gregg Mitman, “Forgotten Paths of Empire,” and Film and Discussion, “In the Shadow of Ebola” (April 21–22, 2015); and Prof. Lynda Nead, “The Tiger in the Fog: The Aesthetics of Fog in Postwar Britain,” (April 14, 2015). 
          • Organized, with Anthony Hatch, “Racism, Technology, and Social Protest,” a community dialogue to foster group discussion about the historical transformation of social and political contexts in which people use visual technologies to analyze and challenge racism (December 5, 2015).   
          • Presenter, “Eadweard Muybridge’s Nudes,” Artful Lunch Series, Davison Art Center (October 9, 2012). 

          Students & Teaching

          Graduate Seminars

          • Grant writing workshop, Visual Studies Research Institute, Graduate seminar, Univ. of Southern California (October 3, 2020). 
          • Book publishing workshop for graduate students and recent postdocs, Science History Institute, Philadelphia, PA (October 2020). 
          • Jobs in Art and Law, Careers Day workshop, University of York (October 10, 2016). 

          Undergraduate Courses Taught at Wesleyan

          Seminars
          Lecture-based Courses
           

          Community

            • Historical consultant on popular science learning, gender, and toy culture, 1915-1960, for “The Erector Set at 100,” Eli Whitney Museum, New Haven (Fall 2013). 
            • “Science as Spectacle,” The Observatory, a New York arts space that presents public programming inspired by the 18th century notion of “rational amusement” (October 28, 2012). 
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