Art professor’s book named outstanding academic title

Friday, March 1, 2013

Jae Emerling, an assistant professor of art, is the author of “Photography: History and Theory,” which recently was named Outstanding Academic Title for Photography by the publication “Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries.”

Produced by the Association for College and Research Libraries, with both print and online editions, “Choice” publishes more than 7,000 reviews each year, covering more than 50 academic disciplines. Every January, in print and online, “Choice” publishes a list of Outstanding Academic Titles that were reviewed during the previous calendar year.

“Photography: History and Theory” is an introduction to the history of photography and the thought that has developed around it. It broadly explores the experience, politically and aesthetically, of the photographic image. M. R. Freeman, a “Choice” editor for photography book reviews, wrote:  

“In exploring photography's inexorable relationship to theory, Emerling has produced an elegant and rigorous analysis of key theoretical junctures within the history of this crucial medium of visual culture… [T]his excellent study is likely to become an indispensable volume for graduate students and scholars of photography and those interested in theories of visual culture. Highly recommended.”

Emerling is an assistant professor of modern/contemporary art history in the Department of Art + Art History. In fall 2011, he was visiting professor of contemporary art in the Faculty of Arts at VU Amsterdam. His first book, “Theory for Art History,” has been contracted for a second, revised and expanded edition by Routledge, and he has begun a new book project on the aesthetic-historiographic concept of transmissibility that will include readings of Gilles Deleuze, Walter Benjamin, Cy Twombly, W.G. Sebald, Thomas Struth and others.