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INTERDISCIPLINARY WORKING GROUP IN CRITICAL THEORY
Nicole Fleetwood, "Posing in Prison: Photography, Family Visits, and the Circulation of Feelings"
Thursday November 01, 2012 | 06:00 -08:00 PM | Stanford Humanities Center Boardroom

Nicole Fleetwood (Rutgers, American Studies), with respondent Angela Garcia (Stanford, Anthropology)

"Posing in Prison" is a part of Fleetwood's current book-length study on prison art and visuality during the era of mass incarceration. "Posing in Prison" examines vernacular photography and studio portraiture that takes place inside U.S. prisons, by investigating the production practices and the circulation of these images in and out of prisons. The photographs include images that document family visits to incarcerated relatives, portraits taken by inmate photographers in make-shift studios designed by inmates, and photographs taken by outside photographers and artists. The paper considers how vernacular photography and portraiture of incarcerated subjects circulate as practices of intimacy and attachment."

Fleetwood is Associate Professor in the Department of American Studies at Rutgers University, New Brunswick. She researches and teaches in the areas of visual culture and media studies, black cultural studies, gender theory, and culture and technology studies. She is the author of Troubling Vision: Performance, Visuality, and Blackness (University of Chicago Press 2011). Her articles appear in American Quarterly, Signs, Social Text, tdr: the journal of performance studies, Art Journal, and edited anthologies. Fleetwood has worked as a consultant and has collaborated with a number of arts organizations and programs, including the Ford Foundation’s Artography initiative, New Museum of Contemporary Art’s Visual Knowledge Program, Walker Art Center, Southern Exposure, San Francisco Arts Commission, and Youth Speaks.