In Conversation: Emily Doucet and Kathrin Yacavone

Friday, Nov. 13 at at 12 pm EST • 9 am PST • 5 pm GMT

Event held via Zoom • Registration Link

Photography Network membership is required to attend.

Please join us on Friday, Nov. 13 at 12 pm to hear Emily Doucet and Kathrin Yacavone discuss their recent publications.

Abstract:

Authors and photography historians Emily Doucet and Kathrin Yacavone will be in conversation to mark the publication of their respective recently published books, Inventing Nadar: A History of Photographic Firsts (Duke UP, 2026) and Intermedial Authorship: Photography, Portraiture and Nineteenth-Century Literary Celebrity (Edinburgh UP, 2026). The books share an interest in media theoretical approaches to the history of photography, interrogating the construction of authorship — both photographic and literary — and historical writing. With the famous French photographer Nadar as the backbone of their respective studies, both explore the visual and cultural history of the nineteenth century as the cradle for modern discourses about individuality and celebrity, media and technology, and the construction of photographic history.

Speaker Bio:

Emily Doucet is a writer, editor and researcher interested in photography and the cultural life of technology — past, present, and future.  For over 15 years, she has been reading, writing, teaching, and speaking on these topics at academic institutions including the University of Toronto and McGill University, as well as at museums, galleries, and schools across Canada, the US, Europe, and the UK. She holds a PhD in Art History from the University of Toronto.

Kathrin Yacavone is a media studies scholar and photography historian and currently Interim Professor at the University of Freiburg. She is the author of Benjamin, Barthes and the Singularity of Photography and Intermedial Authorship, as well as co-editor of Die Fotografie und ihre Institutionen (Photography’s Institutionalization). She has edited five special journal issues on topics such as collaborative authorship, photo albums, contemporary photography in France, and nineteenth-century portraiture. Her current research project concerns the cultural impact of generative AI in relation to the aesthetic category of style.