Sheehan publishes in new book on before-and-after photos

Associate Professor of Art Tanya Sheehan is one of twelve contributors to a new book edited by Jordan Bear and Kate Palmer Albers. Published by Bloomsbury, Before-and-After Photography: Histories and Contexts examines the central position of this photographic genre in a wide range of contexts from the 19th century to the present. Sheehan’s essay, titled “Staging Emancipation: Race and Reconstruction in American Photographic Humor,” focuses on a pair of studio photographs dating to ca. 1863 that imagine the physical, social, and political effects of black emancipation in the United States. Her argument stems from her ongoing research on race and American visual humor.