Catherine Zuromskis
Associate Professor
School of Photographic Arts and Sciences
College of Art and Design
Undergraduate Program Director, Fine Art Photography
Office Location
Catherine Zuromskis
Associate Professor
School of Photographic Arts and Sciences
College of Art and Design
Undergraduate Program Director, Fine Art Photography
Education
BA, Harvard College; MA, University of New York at Stony Brook; MA, Ph.D., University of Rochester
Areas of Expertise
Visual Culture
Art History
Photography
Select Scholarship
Full Length Book
Zuromskis, Catherine, A. Joan Saab, and Aubrey Anable. A Concise Companion to Visual Culture. 1 ed. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Blackwell, 2021. Print.
Book Chapter
Zuromskis, Catherine. "Evidence of Feeling: Race, Police Violence, and the Limits of Documentation." Ubiquity: Photography's Multitudes. Ed. Jacob W. Lewis and Kyle Parry. Leuven, Belgium: University of Leuven Press, 2021. 159-178. Print.
Zuromskis, Catherine. "Snapshot Photography: History, Theory, Practice, and Aesthetics." A Companion to Photography. Ed. Stephen Bull. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Blackwell, 2020. 291-306. Print.
Zuromskis, Catherine. "Abraham Zapruder, ‘Split Second Sequence as the Bullets Struck’ (1963)." Life Magazine and the Power of Photography. Ed. Katherine Bussard and Kristen Gresh. New Haven, NJ: Princeton University Art Museum and yale University Press, 2020. 270-273. Print.
Zuromskis, Catherine. "Crimes Seen and Unseen: Fantasies and Failures of Photographic Truth in Joel Sternfeld’s On This Site and Trevor Paglen’s Limit Telephotography." Photography and Failure. Ed. Kris Belden-Adams. New York, NY: Bloomsbury, 2017. 81-94. Print.
Invited Article/Publication
Zuromskis, Catherine. "The Social Lives of Archival Photographs"." The Archives of American Art Journal. (2018). Print.
Zuromskis, Catherine. "Snapshot Photography, Now and Then: Making, Sharing, and Liking Photographs at the Digital Frontier." afterimage. (2016). Print.
Journal Paper
Zuromskis, Catherine. "All One Life”: Celebrity and Intimacy in the Photographs of Annie Leibovitz." Photography and Culture 10. 3 (2017): 1-19. Print.
Published Conference Proceedings
Zuromskis, Catherine. "Complicating Images: On Claudia Rankine’s Citizen." Proceedings of the Association for the Study of Arts of the Present annual Conference, 2016. Ed. Daniel Worden. Los Angeles, CA: LA Review of Books, 2016. Web.
Invited Keynote/Presentation
Zuromskis, Catherine. "Seen of the Crime: Joel Sternfeld's On This Site and Trevor Paglen's Black Sites." Visiting speaker and educator. Whitman College. Walla Walla, WA. 13 Apr. 2015. Guest Lecture.
Currently Teaching
ARTH-521
The Image
3 Credits
The image remains a ubiquitous, controversial, ambiguous and deeply problematic issue in contemporary critical discourse. This course will examine recent scholarship devoted to the image—a ubiquitous controversial, ambiguous and deeply problematic issue in contemporary critical discourse—and the ideological implications of the image in contemporary culture. Topics will include: the modern debate over word vs. image, the mythic origins of images, subversive, traumatic, monstrous, banned and destroyed images (idolatry and iconoclasm), the votive, the totem, and effigy, the mental image, the limits of visuality, the moving and projected image, the virtual image, dialectical images, image fetishism, the valence of the image, semiotics and the image, as well as criteria by which to assess their success or failure (their intelligibility) and their alleged redemptive and poetic power. Students will explore the theoretical framework of the concept of the image, and critically evaluate these theories within their broader intellectual and historical contexts.
PHAR-212
Histories and Aesthetics of Photography II
3 Credits
The objective of this course, the second course of a two-semester sequence, is to present an overview of the multiple, intersecting histories and aesthetic practices of photography from the development of Modernism to the present, including the medium's transformation by digital imaging in the 21st century. Photography's applications within fine art, documentary, scientific, journalistic, commercial and vernacular practices will be investigated within a global perspective, but primary emphasis is placed upon developments and movements within the United States and Europe.
PHAR-599
Photography Independent Study
1 - 3 Credits
Photography Independent Study will provide students with the ability to study in a specialized area with an individual faculty member. Students, with the assistance of a faculty adviser, will propose a course of study. Photography Independent Study students must obtain permission of an instructor and complete the Independent Study Permission Form to enroll.
PHFA-511
Contemporary Issues
3 Credits
A study of current issues relevant to imaging-based fine art photography and related media; how they relate to broader historical/cultural issues; and how they might suggest future directions. Emphasis is placed on the integration of critical theoretical discourse and studio practice. This course is a touchstone to current and future fine art practices through its engagement with a variety of subjects. This course can be taken multiple times but individual topics must be different.
PHGR-611
Contemporary Issues
3 Credits
This course will study current issues relevant to imaging-based fine art photography and related media; how they relate to broader historical/cultural issues, and how they might suggest future directions. Emphasis is placed on the integration of critical theoretical discourse and studio practice. This course is a touchstone to current and future fine art practices through its engagement with a variety of subjects. This course may be repeated with different topics. Topic is determined by the instructor.
PHGR-701
Histories and Aesthetics of Photography I
3 Credits
This course, the first in a two-semester sequence, will present an overview of the multiple and intersecting aesthetics, applications, perceptions, and philosophies of photography. Readings and discussions will examine the emergence and establishment of fine art photography, documentary and photojournalism, photography in the sciences, commercial and pop-cultural photographic applications, photography in the political arena, and photography as a mode of social interaction and identity formation. The class will also study the evolving technical history of photographic processes and the proliferation of critical theoretical perspectives on the medium during its first 100 years.
PHGR-702
Histories and Aesthetics of Photography II
3 Credits
This course, the second in the two-semester sequence, will offer an in-depth study of key historical, critical, and theoretical issues in photographic visual culture in the modern, postmodern, and contemporary periods. The course will explore aesthetic trajectories in modern and contemporary photography from the emergence of the modernist Avant Garde at the beginning of the 20th century to such contemporary phenomena as the deadpan aesthetic, performance documentation, fictive photography, and photographic appropriation. This course will also examine the evolving language of commercial photography, stylistic and ethical approaches to photojournalism, photography and the politics of the museum, vernacular photographies, and the presence of digital technologies and social media networks in the contemporary global media age.
PHGR-721
Research Core I
3 Credits
This course, following successful completion of half-candidacy, will outline the policies and procedures required for the MFA thesis defense and thesis publication for this program of study. Throughout the course, students will refine their research, presentation, and writing skills. Through assignments and in-class discussion and critique, students will begin developing their thesis defense presentations, conduct research relevant to their work, and begin drafting their thesis publication.
PHGR-799
MFA Photography Independent Study
1 - 4 Credits
An independent study allows graduate students in the Photography and Related Media program the ability to study in a specialized area with an individual faculty member. Students, with the assistance of a faculty adviser, should propose a course of study or project with clearly defined goals and outcomes. Students must obtain permission of an instructor and complete the Independent Study Permission Form to enroll. **NOTE: Student must have a minimum 3.0 GPA *
In the News
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March 9, 2023
![Andy Warhol holding a Polaroid camera that's printing a photo of himself.]()
Andy Warhol exhibition at the Art Gallery of South Australia uses photographs to show the artist through a new lens
ABC News (Australian Broadcast Corporation) cites an essay by Catherine Zuromskis, associate professor in the School of Photographic Arts and Sciences, about the artist Andy Warhol.
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September 1, 2020
![Split headshots of Joy Anderson, Rebeca Posadas-Nava and Aria Dines.]()
Students, faculty to lead 'Representation Matters' panel
Students Joy Anderson (Film and Animation) and Aria A. Dines (Film and Animation; Illustration) are featured speakers for the Levine Center to End Hate's "Brave Spaces" event.
Featured Work
A Concise Companion to Visual Culture (Wiley Blackwell, 2020)
Catherine Zuromskis
Co-edited with Aubrey Anable and Joan Saab, The Wiley Blackwell Concise Companion to Visual Culture brings together original research by both established scholars and new voices in the dynamic field,...
Snapshot Photography: The Lives of Images (MIT Press, 2013)
Catherine Zuromskis
Snapshots capture everyday occasions. Taken by amateur photographers with simple point-and-shoot cameras, snapshots often commemorate something that is private and personal; yet they also reflect...
From the Factory to the World: Photography and the Warhol Community (Exhibition and Catalog)
Catherine Zuromskis
Of the many ways in which Pop artist Andy Warhol (1928-1987) has influenced contemporary art, perhaps the most significant is the collaborative sphere he orchestrated through The Factory. Established...