Last week I learned that I have been offered a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship for 2016-17 for my project, American Presidents and the History of Photography from the Daguerreotype to the Digital Revolution. I'm honored and excited to have the opportunity to spend 12 months focusing on the book project, and grateful for those who helped me craft my application, wrote reference letters, and showed interest in the work. And now the fun begins!  

 

It's been a busy few weeks for Making Photography Matter. In mid-November I learned that the Visual Communication division of the National Communication Association named it "Outstanding Book of the Year." This is an especially meaningful honor because the Visual Comm division was the very first thing I joined when I became a member of NCA twenty years ago. For them to honor my work all these years later makes me feel really good (and, truth be told, really old). Thank you, Vis Comm!

In other MPM news, last week I was interviewed by communication/rhetoric scholar Karma Chavez on Madison radio station WORT's program "A Public Affair." It was a fun, wide-ranging conversation about several topics, including Civil War photography, rhetorical methods, why 19th century Americans were obsessed with Abraham Lincoln, and what my students have taught me about selfies. You can listen to the interview here.