About the Seminar

Welcome to the website for the Toronto Photography Seminar and for the October, 2009 conference “Feeling Photography.”

If you are looking for further information about the October 2009 conference, please click on the menu bars to the right. More information about the Toronto Photography Seminar is below.

The Toronto Photography Seminar is a group of scholars and curators from Ontario institutions who have been meeting regularly since 2004 to read, produce, and edit collaborative research concerning the history and theory of photography. Our meetings focus on discussing a set of common readings; reading and ‘workshopping’ the papers of group members on the topic of photography; and collaborating on an annual research publication. We range in scholarly focus from contemporary art to the history of corporate public relations imagery; in geographical focus from North America to South Asia; and in disciplinary background from cultural history to media studies and art history. Our common research concern, however, has been the history, theory, and interpretation of photographic media in global circulation. 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, forthcoming October, 2009).  Our work has been funded by York University (faculty development grant) and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (International Opportunities Fund). Our group also workshops the papers of colleagues from other universities, who also present a second aspect of their work in a public forum. Guests have included John Tagg, Carol Payne, John O’Brien, Laura Wexler, Shawn Michelle Smith, Clement Cheroux, and Roberto Tejada. Upcoming guests include Peggy Phalen and Mark Haworth-Booth.