Symposium: Learning Through Photography

For information about registration and hotel accommodations, please scroll down to the bottom of the page.

Thursday, April 30

This lecture is open to the public and does not require registration.

Keynote Address
If Emmett Till Lived: Photographs and Monuments
5:30–6:30 p.m. 

Sarah Lewis
Founder of Vision & Justice and the John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Humanities and Associate Professor of African and African American Studies at Harvard University

Friday, May 1

Registration for this event has closed. We encourage you to join us onsite for a first come, first served waitlist.

Opening Remarks 
10–10:15 a.m.

Panel 1: Sampling 
10:15–11:30 a.m. 

Bringing photographs together and breaking photographs apart, this panel reflects on practices of remixing, adapting, and transforming images, as well as addresses the multivalent meanings of sampling in relation to photography. 

Moderated by Brendan Fay, Associate Professor of Art History, Eastern Michigan University  

Panelists: 

• Deana Lawson, Professor of Visual Arts, Princeton University 
• Eduardo Navas, Research Professor of Art, Penn State University 
• Carmen Winant, Professor of Art, The Ohio State University 

Panel 2: Creativity 
11:45 a.m.–1 p.m. 

Asking how creativity can be taught, harnessed, or nurtured in an expanded field of photography and its institutions, this panel explores the creative practices of makers, educators, and viewers. 

Moderated by Katherine A. Bussard, Senior Curator of Photography, Princeton University Art Museum 

Panelists: 

• Kim Beil, Associate Director of ITALIC, Stanford University 
• Eduardo Cadava, Philip Mayhew Professor of English, Princeton University 
• Dionne Lee, Assistant Professor of Art, The Ohio State University  

Lunch Break 
1–2:30 p.m. 

Boxed lunches will be available for purchase in the Museum’s Education Commons. Mosaic restaurant, located on the third floor, will be offering takeout for purchase from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Explore Photography as a Way of Life: Minor White, Aaron Siskind, and Harry Callahan 
Temporary Exhibitions Gallery 
Join Katherine Bussard, Monica Bravo, and Brendan Fay to learn more about the works on view in the exhibition. 

Panel 3: Attention 
2:30–3:45 p.m. 

Photography has thrown us into an attention economy; could it also pull us back from the brink? This panel addresses photography’s relationship to attention and humanistic practices in an era of increasingly inhuman, AI-driven images.  

Moderated by Christy Wampole, Professor of French, Princeton University 

Panelists: 

• Jennifer Bajorek, Professor of Literature, Visual Studies, and African and African Diaspora Arts, Hampshire College 
• Beth Blum, Professor of English, Harvard University 
• David Benjamin Sherry, Independent artist 

Artists’ Roundtable: Friends 
4–5:30 p.m. 

Offering a case study in learning through photography, this roundtable brings together former Princeton photography students of Emmet Gowin to reflect on his pedagogy and where it has taken them.  

Moderated by Monica Bravo, Assistant Professor of Art and Archaeology, Princeton University 

Panelists: 

• Virginia Beahan, Senior Lecturer Emerit in Studio Art, Dartmouth College 
• Laura McPhee, Professor Emerit of Photography, Massachusetts College of Art and Design 
• Andrew Moore, Instructor of Photography, School of Visual Arts 
• Fazal Sheikh, Independent artist 
• Carla Williams, Independent artist  

Closing Reception 
5:30–6:30 p.m. 

Registration + Hotel Information 

Registration
These events are free and open to the public. 
The keynote lecture on Thursday, April 30, does not require registration; seating is first come, first served. 
Registration is required to attend the symposium on Friday, May 1. 

Accommodations
A block of rooms at discount rates are available on a first come, first served basis at the Graduate Hotel at participants’ expense. Reservations can be made through this link by March 30, 2026. 

“Learning Through Photography” is organized by Monica Bravo, assistant professor, Department of Art & Archaeology, Princeton University; Katherine A. Bussard, Peter C. Bunnell Senior Curator of Photography, Princeton University Art Museum; and Brendan Fay, guest curator of Photography as A Way of Life and associate professor, School of Art and Design, Eastern Michigan University.