• Shawn Michelle Smith

    Shawn Michelle Smith studies the history and theory of photography and race and gender in visual culture. She has published seven books, including most recently Photographic Returns: Racial Justice and the Time of Photography (Duke, 2020), which won the 2021 Ray and Pat Browne Award from the Popular Culture Association. She guest edited a special issue of the journal MELUS on visual culture and race (2014), and she currently serves on the editorial or advisory boards of American Art, Photography & Culture and Journal of Visual Culture. In 2018, Smith curated the exhibition Meridel Rubenstein: Eden Turned on Its Side at the University of New Mexico Art Museum. She has been awarded fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum Research Cente, and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, among others. Smith is also a visual artist and her photo-based work has been exhibited in art galleries and university museums across the country. Smith is Professor and Chair of Visual and Critical Studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

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