The 2024/25 season of By/For Collective brought together voices that challenge and expand our understanding of photography’s role in democratic discourse. The following readings, recommended by our inaugural speakers, offer critical perspectives and invite deeper reflection on the medium’s political and civic dimensions. We extend our thanks to Shawn Michelle Smith, Brenna Wynn Greer, Thy Phu, Darren Newbury, Ileana L. Selejan, and Patricia Hayes.
Patricia Hayes, “Poisoned Landscapes” in Santu Mofokeng and Corinne Diserens, Chasing Shadows. Santu Mofokeng: Thirty Years of Photographic Essays. Munich: Prestel, 2011, 202-9
Ileana L. Selejan, “Insurgent Archive: The Photographic Making and Un-making of the Nicaraguan Revolutionary State.” In Citizens of Photography: The Camera and the Political Imagination, edited by Christopher Pinney, et al., 192-233. Durham: Duke University Press, 2023
Chapter 4: ‘“A Pleasant Mixture of Negro and White”: Photographing Civil Rights as Democracy in Action’, 119-68, in Darren Newbury, Cold War Photographic Diplomacy: The US Information Agency and Africa. University Park: Penn State University Press, 2024
To request a copy of this recommended reading, please email us.
Thy Phu, ‘Refugee Photography and the Subject of Human Interest’ in Photography and Migration, ed. Tanya Sheehan (London: Routledge, 2020): 135-149
Martha J. Cutter, “The Fugitive Gazes Back: The Photographic Performance Work of Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth” in InMedia, 8.2 (2020)
Shawn Michelle Smith, “Introduction: Photographic Returns” in Photographic Returns: Racial Justice and the Time of Photography. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2020
