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WORK TITLE: Making Photography Matter
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: http://www.carafinnegan.com/
CITY:
STATE:
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
http://www.communication.illinois.edu/people/caraf * http://www.carafinnegan.com/about.html * http://www.carafinnegan.com/uploads/8/1/5/3/8153477/finnegancv9-16.pdf * https://www.linkedin.com/in/carafinnegan
RESEARCHER NOTES:
LC control no.: n 2002012292
LCCN Permalink: https://lccn.loc.gov/n2002012292
HEADING: Finnegan, Cara A.
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100 1_ |a Finnegan, Cara A.
670 __ |a Finnegan, Cara A. Picturing poverty, 2003: |b CIP t.p. (Cara A. Finnegan)
670 __ |a Making photography matter, 2015: |b ECIP t.p. (Cara A. Finnegan) data viiew (b. Nov. 4, 1969; associate professor, UIUC; Dept. of Communication; and Dept. Art History and Gender & Women’s Studies)
PERSONAL
Born November 4, 1969, in Saint Paul, MN.
EDUCATION:University of St. Thomas, B.A., 1992; University of Maine, M.A., 1995; Northwestern University, Ph.D., 1999.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Academic. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, professor of communications, Conrad Humanities Professorship in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Vanderbilt University, Warren Center for the Humanities, William S. Vaughn Visiting Fellow, 2006-07; National Endowment for the Humanities fellow, 2016-17; has appeared on national television programs.
AWARDS:Diamond Anniversary Book Award, National Communication Association, 2004, for Picturing Poverty; Rhetorical and Communication Theory Division New Investigator Award, National Communication Association, 2005; Campus Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, 2005-06; Golden Monograph Award, National Communication Association, 2006; Visual Communication Division Book Award, National Communication Association, 2015, for Making Photography Matter; Winans-Wichelns Memorial Award, National Communication Association, 2016, for distinguished scholarship in rhetoric and public address.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Cara A. Finnegan is an academic. She was born on November 4, 1969, in St. Paul, Minnesota. She earned degrees from the University of St. Thomas and the University of Maine before completing her Ph.D. at Northwestern University in 1999. Finnegan subsequently joined the faculty of the Department of Communication at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she serves as a professor of communications and holds affiliated faculty appointments in the Center for Writing Studies and in the Departments of Gender and Women’s Studies and Art History. She has held a Conrad Humanities Professorship in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and served as a National Endowment for the Humanities fellow. Finnegan’s academic research interests center on the role of photography as a tool for public life. She regularly moderates the Reading the Pictures online discussion at Salon, which brings together academics, photojournalists, and political commentators to debate the ways that photography frames contemporary social and political issues. She published her first book, Picturing Poverty: Print Culture and FSA Photographs, in 2003.
In 2016 Finnegan published Making Photography Matter: A Viewer’s History from the Civil War to the Great Depression. The book examines the way that photographic imaging has invaded the lives of Americans from the Civil War through the Great Depression. Finnegan talks with communities to get their impression of this invasion and look at how they see the world and its most significant events through imaging rather than actual experience. Finnegan measures the responses to the pictures of mostly people, from children to soldiers, with the intention of seeing how the images affect them and how the opinions of others influence those also viewing the same picture. The book won the National Communication Association’s 2016 Winans-Wichelns Memorial Award for Distinguished Scholarship in Rhetoric and Public Address.
Reviewing the book in the Journal of Southern History, Aston Gonzalez suggested that “much more robust analyses of fears over the future of American identity in chapter 2 and the threats to white citizenship expressed in Dawley’s work in the third chapter are needed. Notwithstanding these issues, Finnegan’s well-written and tightly argued book is of great use to scholars in many disciplines.” In a review in Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, C. Chiarenza said that although it is not the first account to tackle this topic, the book is “recommended,” adding that “Finnegan presses readers to be aware of its relevance, and she inspires further research.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, December 1, 2015, C. Chiarenza, review of Making Photography Matter, p. 569.
Journal of Southern History, August 1, 2016, Aston Gonzalez, review of Making Photography Matter: A Viewer’s History from the Civil War to the Great Depression, p. 692.
ONLINE
Cara A. Finnegan Home Page, http://www.carafinnegan.com (March 18, 2017).
Department of Communication, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, http://www.communication.illinois.edu/ (March 18, 2017), author profile.
Department of CommunicationContent
Cara A. Finnegan Ph.D.
Professor of Communication
caraf@illinois.edu
Address: Communication 3001 Lincoln Hall M/C 456 Urbana, IL 61801
Telephone: (217) 333-1855
Visit Website
Office Hours
ON RESEARCH LEAVE, 2016-17
Biography
Cara Finnegan is a Professor in the Department of Communication. She joined the university in 1999 after completing her Ph.D. at Northwestern University. She holds affiliated appointments in the Center for Writing Studies, Gender and Women's Studies, and Art History. She currently holds a Conrad Humanities Professorship in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
Finnegan's research examines the role of photography as a tool for public life. Photographs are powerful forms of communication: they visualize social issues, make visible those who are often invisible, and foster or limit bonds of identification. Her book-length projects are best described as rhetorical histories of photography, in that she variously examines the production, composition, circulation, and reception of photographs at specific moments in U.S. history. Her most recent book, Making Photography Matter: A Viewer's History from the Civil War to the Great Depression was published by University of Illinois Press in 2015.
During 2016-17, Finnegan will hold a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Fellowship in support of her current book project, American Presidents and the History of Photography from the Daguerreotype to the Digital Age.
Specializations / Research Interest(s)
visual rhetoric; rhetorical criticism; visual politics of public address; photography; contemporary rhetorical theory; public sphere theory; U.S. rhetorical history
Education
Ph.D. Northwestern University, 1999
M.A. University of Maine, 1995
B.A. University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, MN, 1992
Distinctions / Awards
National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Fellowship, 2016-17
Associate, Center for Advanced Study, 2015-16
Conrad Humanities Professor, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, 2012-2017
NCA Diamond Anniversary Book Award for Picturing Poverty, 2004
NCA Golden Monograph Award for "Recognizing Lincoln," 2006
NCA Visual Communication Division Book Award for Making Photography Matter, 2015
William S. Vaughn Visiting Fellow, Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities, Vanderbilt University, 2006-07
Campus Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, 2005-06
NCA Rhetorical and Communication Theory Division New Investigator Award, 2005
ABOUT
Cara Finnegan is a writer, teacher, and historian of photography. Her books and essays explore the role of photography as a tool for public life. Her latest book is Making Photography Matter: A Viewer's History from the Civil War to the Great Depression (University of Illinois Press, 2015), which won the National Communication Association's 2016 Winans-Wichelns Memorial Award for Distinguished Scholarship in Rhetoric and Public Address.
Finnegan's ideas about photography have been featured in a variety of publications in the fields of Communication and American History, as well as in popular media outlets such as CBS, National Public Radio, Vox, and Reuters. She also regularly moderates the Reading the Pictures Salon, a real-time, online discussion where photojournalists, political commentators, and academics explore how photography is used to frame contemporary social and political issues.
A native of Saint Paul, Minnesota, Finnegan received her B.A. from the University of St. Thomas in 1992, her M.A. from the University of Maine in 1995, and her Ph.D. from Northwestern University in 1999. A member of the faculty of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign since 1999, she is currently a Conrad Humanities Scholar in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and Professor of Communication. She holds affiliated appointments in Art History, Gender and Women's Studies, and the Center for Writing Studies.
Finnegan currently holds a 2016-17 National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Fellowship to support work on her latest book project, American Presidents and the History of Photography from the Daguerreotype to the Digital Revolution.
Download a full, current CV.
Access Finnegan's Google Scholar profile.
Contact at caraf@illinois.edu.
Making Photography Matter: A Viewer's History from the
Civil War to the Great Depression
Aston Gonzalez
Journal of Southern History.
82.3 (Aug. 2016): p692.
COPYRIGHT 2016 Southern Historical Association
http://www.uga.edu/~sha
Full Text:
Making Photography Matter: A Viewer's History from the Civil War to the Great Depression. By Cara A. Finnegan. (Urbana and other cities:
University of Illinois Press, 2015. Pp. [xiv], 240. $50.00, ISBN 978-0-252-03926-3.)
In four case studies spanning the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Cara A. Finnegan examines how viewers individually and collectively
understood images. Bridging the fields of rhetoric, communication, and visual studies, Finnegan analyzes a variety of published and unpublished
written responses to photographs. In doing so, she identifies the ideas and discourses that viewers marshaled to reveal their visual consumption
and cultural knowledge. She investigates a series of "reading problems" faced by nineteenth- and twentieth-century viewers, succinctly explaining
how they made sense of the images they encountered (p. 3). She elucidates the process of photographic interpretation by explaining the cultural
discourses in circulation for each case study and by analyzing the language viewers recorded of their visual interaction.
Organized chronologically, the chapters provide keen insights into viewer reception and agency. The first chapter evaluates how viewers of
photographs grappled with the death wrought by the Civil War. Using detailed textual and visual descriptions, writers guided viewers of Civil
War photographs to "see" and vicariously experience the death scenes. In an especially provocative portion of the chapter, Finnegan scrutinizes
spirit photography debates and trials to show how viewers impressed their desires on images to commemorate the dead. The challenge to see
"presence"--the deceased as well as the devastation of war--revealed that the beliefs of the viewers became the truths that they derived from
images (p. 14). The 1895 publication of a newly discovered photograph of a young Abraham Lincoln provides a second study for how viewers
drew on history, nostalgia, and imagination to understand Lincoln's character. The third chapter explains how the text and images in Thomas
Robinson Dawley Jr.'s 1912 book, The Child That Toileth Not: The Story of a Government Investigation, "refute an activist narrative"
denouncing child labor (p. 93). Finnegan shows how Dawley appropriated anti-child labor images and arguments to fashion propaganda alleging
child labor's redemptive benefits. The last chapter explains how visitors to the First International Photographic Exposition held in New York City
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in 1938 "negotiated the magnitude of the crisis" brought on by the Great Depression (p. 131). Finnegan skillfully parses the hundreds of comment
cards viewers left to reveal their shame, anxiety, and calls for public policy and increased publicity of the severity of the Great Depression.
The methodologies and theories that Finnegan employs in the book bring scholars much closer to rendering visible how viewers use an everchanging
repertoire of ideas to express their interactions with images and how photography shapes their self-perception. Finnegan's work reminds
scholars not only that viewing experiences are contingent and contextual but also that they reveal viewers' agency and interiority. Providing a
more critical approach to both the presence and absence of race in the third and fourth chapters would strengthen the book. Much more robust
analyses of fears over the future of American identity in chapter 2 and the threats to white citizenship expressed in Dawley's work in the third
chapter are needed. Notwithstanding these issues, Finnegan's well-written and tightly argued book is of great use to scholars in many disciplines.
ASTON GONZALEZ
Salisbury University
Gonzalez, Aston
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Gonzalez, Aston. "Making Photography Matter: A Viewer's History from the Civil War to the Great Depression." Journal of Southern History,
vol. 82, no. 3, 2016, p. 692+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA460447787&it=r&asid=5bc8fcc4dcb2723da3c05735a29dca9d. Accessed 4 Mar.
2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A460447787
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Finnegan, Cara A.: Making photography matter: a viewer's
history from the Civil War to the Great Depression
C. Chiarenza
CHOICE: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries.
53.04 (Dec. 2015): p569.
COPYRIGHT 2015 American Library Association CHOICE
http://www.ala.org/acrl/choice/about
Full Text:
Finnegan, Cara A. Making photography matter: a viewer's history from the Civil War to the Great Depression. Illinois, 2015. 240p bibl index afp
ISBN 9780252039263 cloth, $50.00; ISBN 9780252097317 ebook, contact publisher for price
(cc) 53-1634
TR23
2014-45920 CIP
Finnegan digs into an important and under-examined aspect of the "invasion" of photographic representation into public and private life, from the
Civil War through the Great Depression. She asks about individual and/or community responses to what people increasingly see mostly through
imaging. The "seen" analyzed here is limited primarily to people: portraits, children at work, soldiers at war, etc. At stake is how viewers are
affected by and how they respond to this "pictured" reality. What is missing is applying this crucial question to the larger world--the endless
visualization of kinds of environments and other aspects of life (e.g. race). Advertising imagery, among other things, plays a role that should be
included in this investigation. A closer reading of how people pictured are aware of the camera versus those who are not would also be helpful.
Consider, for example, snapshots versus images produced by studio portraitists. Chapter 3 explores an important subject: how a viewer's position
(for example, class) affects different viewers' responses to the same image. Though certainly not the first to look at this topic, Finnegan presses
readers to be aware of its relevance, and she inspires further research. Summing Up: ** Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates and
above.--C. Chiarenza, emeritus. University of Rochester
Chiarenza, C.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Chiarenza, C. "Finnegan, Cara A.: Making photography matter: a viewer's history from the Civil War to the Great Depression." CHOICE:
Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, Dec. 2015, p. 569. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA437505820&it=r&asid=a17d6bb5a0f7636408eb267f9bf48799. Accessed 4 Mar.
2017.
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Gale Document Number: GALE|A437505820