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Research

Research Summary

Stephanie is interested in photography and its histories, with a specific focus on the emergence of American documentary in the 1930s. Her first book, Walker Evans: No Politics (University of Texas Press, 2020), offers a sweeping reinterpretation of Evans鈥檚 prolific work. Taking seriously Evans鈥檚 refusal to act or work politically, his 1935 insistence 鈥楴O POLITICS whatever鈥�, Walker Evans challenges the established claim that American documentary finds its origins in the politics of the New Deal. Likewise, it questions the assumption that Evans鈥檚 work is necessarily about the Great Depression. Framed by a study of the work Evans completed in Cuba during the revolution of 1933, the book situates Evans鈥檚 work and documentary in a long history of Americanisation.听

Stephanie is currently completing a second book project on the work of Allan Sekula. Preliminarily title Forgetting Reagan: Allan Sekula鈥檚 Documentary, the book considers Sekula鈥檚 long-held, though rarely discussed, obsession with the figure of Ronald Reagan. Stephanie鈥檚 concern is not simply with the fact that this obsession has not been addressed in the extensive literature on Sekula鈥檚 prolific production鈥攖hat it has been forgotten. It is with what this tells us about a desire to forget the centrality of the writing of national histories to Reagan鈥檚 work and the work of American documentary. The appeal of photography鈥檚 global turn, of which Sekula鈥檚 practice has been deemed representative, Stephanie argues, represses the writing of national and local histories of colonialism and imperialism that need to be accounted for as Sekula鈥檚 work.

Forgetting Reagan speaks to contemporary nostalgia for a lost past or a 鈥榣ost cause鈥�, a concern also at the centre Stephanie鈥檚 ongoing research on the filmography of Paul Strand and the international collective Frontier Films. Focusing on the collective鈥檚 final production, Native Land (1942), this project attends to the fight against fascism that animates much cultural work of the late 1930s and early 1940s. More specifically, it addresses documentary practices contending with Langston Hughes鈥檚 insistence that fascism was 鈥榥ative鈥� to America. An study of how nativity was reimagined in the wake of Depression, when the nation needed, once again, to represent itself as unified, Stephanie鈥檚 current research speaks to contemporary concerns about how to address recent nativist impulses and the emergence of new or late fascisms in America.听

Selected Publications

BOOKS

Allan Sekula鈥檚 War Work. London: MACK, forthcoming.

Walker Evans: No Politics. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2020.听

Journal Articles
听

鈥淭he Physiognomy of a Nation,鈥� October 158 (Summer 2023): 50-66.

, Arts 10, 29 (2021): 1-12.

, Arts 9, 92 (2020): 1-20.

鈥楻evolution and After鈥�, October 158 (Fall 2016): 126-154.

鈥榃riting After鈥�, an introduction to 鈥楳odernism After Paul Strand鈥�, a special issue of Oxford Art听Journal 38, no.1 (March 2015): 1-10.

鈥楲ate Work: Walker Evans and Fortune鈥�, Oxford Art Journal 38, no.1 (March 2015): 117-141.

鈥楶aul Strand鈥檚 Living Labor鈥�, ARTMargins 2, no. 3 (October 2013): 3-30.

鈥楾ania Bruguera: Between Histories鈥�, Oxford Art Journal 35, no. 2 (June 2012): 215-232.

Chapters in Books

鈥極n Social Photography鈥� in Documentary Genealogies, 1848-1917, ed. Jorge Ribalta (Madrid: Museo听Nacional de Arte Reina Sofia, 2022), forthcoming.听

鈥業s This What Democracy Looks Like? Tania Bruguera and the Politics of Performance鈥�, in Alejandro听Anreus, Robin Greeley, and Megan Sullivan (eds) Companion to Modern and Contemporary Latin American and Latino Art, eds. (Oxford: Blackwell, 2022), pp. 410-422.

鈥楾he Face of Protest鈥�, in Hilde van Gelder (ed) Dissembled Images: Contemporary Art After Allan Sekula听(Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2019), pp. 212-227.

鈥楲a toma larga (The Long Take)鈥�, Monumento m谩quina: Jorge Ribalta (C谩ceres: Centro Jos茅 Guerrero y听Fundaci贸n Helga de Alvear, 2015), pp. 82-99.

Essays

鈥淏ack to the Future,鈥� Afterimage 50.4 (December 2023): 46-50.

鈥淨uestionnaire on Modernism and Diaspora,鈥� October 186 (Fall 2023): 98-105.

鈥楲ightness and Lethargy鈥� in Jordi Barreras, Already But Not Yet (Rome: Punctum Press, 2020).

鈥楳onumental Failure: The Face of Bigotry鈥�, Art Monthly 471 (June 2018): 38-39.

鈥樷��, Tate: In Focus, November 2016.

鈥楳aking the News鈥�, International New Media Gallery, February 2015

鈥楾his Ain't The Swiss Family Robinson鈥�, Photoworks 20 (October 2013): 146-153.

鈥楤etween Labour and Intellect: Jorge Ribalta鈥檚 Anonymous Work鈥�, Philosophy of Photography 3, no. 2听(2013): 358-365.

Interviews

鈥樷��, Archives of American Art,听Smithsonian Institute.

鈥楢nother Walker Evans: Photography, Writing and the Magazine Page鈥�, an interview with David听Campany, in Krakow Photomonth Festival (Krakow, 2014), pp. 36-65. (Reprinted in Photography & Culture 7, no. 2 (July 2014): 189-198.)

鈥楧ocumentary鈥檚 Future Past: A Conversation with Jorge Ribalta鈥�, Photoworks 18 (May 2012): 50-57.听(Reprinted in Spanish in Luna C贸rnea 34 (2013): 324-339.)

鈥楥hronicles: A Conversation with Manuel Pi帽a鈥�, Third Text 110 (May 2011): 361-383.

BOOK REVIEWS

'Our Future', a review of Steve Edwards,听Martha Rosler: The Bowery in two inadequate descriptive systems,听Art Journal听72, no. (Summer 2013): 124-126.

"Beyond Looking," a review of听Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance and the Camera, edited by Sandra Phillips and Jonathan Finn,听Capturing the Criminal: From Mug Shot to Surveillance Society,听Oxford Art Journal听33, no. 3 (November 2010): 389-92.

"Pictures, Again," a review of听Words without Pictures, edited by Charlotte Cotton and Alex Klein,听Art Journal听68, no. 4 (Winter 2009): 87-9.

Teaching and Supervision

Stephanie teaches undergraduate courses on photography and American visual culture, including:

• The Principles and Pleasures of Surveillance
• American Geographies: Figuring the West, 1848-1914
• Histories of Photography
• On Property: Land, Labour and Photography in the United States

She also teaches a MA Special Subject entitled 鈥楢merican Documentary: Inventions, Reinventions and Afterlives鈥�.

She is interested in supervising doctoral dissertations on photography and its histories, documentary and American art, including film, video, theatre, performance, dance and television.听

Prospective students should contact her directly to discuss their proposals at: stephanie.schwartz@ucl.ac.uk.

Current PhD Students:

Daniel Ward, 鈥楢ntinomies of Video: Collective Filmmaking and State Apparatus in the UK 1982-2000鈥�.

Tom Cornelius, 鈥楢merican Surfaces: Topographies of the New West鈥�.

Jacqueline Mabey, 鈥楾his Must Be the Place: Mapping Artistic Kinship and Economic Change in听Downtown New York, 1973鈥�1987鈥�.

Rebecca Van Straten, 鈥極livetti: Typing a History of Italian Photography鈥�.

Past Research Students:

Freya Field-Donovan, 鈥楢 Strange American Funeral: Dance and Technological Reproduction in听1940s America鈥�, awarded June 2022.

Kimberly Schreiber, 鈥楽till Lives in Changing Times: Documentary and the American Carceral State,听1964-1980鈥�, awarded June 2022.

Stephanie King, 鈥楾he Less Acceptable Face of Capitalism: A Study of British Documentary During听the Rise of Thatcherism鈥�, awarded December 2019.

Andrew Witt, 鈥極n the Edge of Catastrophe: California and the Dystopian Image, c. 1970鈥�, awarded听November 2016.

Larne Abse Gogarty, 鈥楻ehearsals, Reproduction, and the Art of Living: Historicising Social Practise听in the USA鈥�, awarded June 2015.

Biography

Stephanie is associate professor of American Art at University College London. She received her PhD from Columbia University in 2007. She was the Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in History and Theory of Photography at Bryn Mawr College from 2007-2009 and the Andrew W. Mellow Research Forum Postdoctoral Fellow at the Courtauld Institute of Art from 2009-2010. She joined the Department of History of Art听at 香港六合彩中特网 in 2010.