Shawn Michelle Smith

Shawn Michelle Smith

Fellow: Awarded 2022
Field of Study: Fine Arts Research

Competition: US & Canada

Shawn Michelle Smith is Professor of Visual and Critical Studies and Interim Dean of Faculty and Vice President of Academic Affairs at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She writes about the history and theory of photography and race and gender in visual culture. Her books include American Archives: Gender, Race, and Class in Visual Culture (1999), Photography on the Color Line: W. E. B. Du Bois, Race, and Visual Culture (2004), At the Edge of Sight: Photography and the Unseen (2013), which won the 2014 Lawrence W. Levine Award from the Organization of American Historians, and Photographic Returns: Racial Justice and the Time of Photography (2020), which won the 2021 Ray and Pat Browne Award from the Popular Culture Association. She is co-author of Lynching Photographs (2007), co-editor of Pictures and Progress: Early Photography and the Making of African American Identity (2012), and co-editor of Photography and the Optical Unconscious (2017). She has published articles in American Quarterly, Art Journal, American Art, Aperture, African American Review, MELUS, Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art, and Journal of Visual Culture, among others. She is also a visual artist who makes photo-based work.

Photo Credit: J.M.

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