Vanessa R Schwartz
Biographic Data
| ID | 231090 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Vanessa R Schwartz |
| GIVEN NAMES | Vanessa R |
| FAMILY NAME | Schwartz |
| SIGNATURE | SCHWARTZ V R |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Southern California |
| ORCID | 0009-0009-8526-2416 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 14 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 52 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 12 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1993 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Photo book constellations
Given the prevalence of photography in books published in the last hundred years, it is surprising that ongoing and interrelated research on the topic is a relatively recent phenomenon, initiated a
‘Creatures of their Times’
This essay treats the history of Time-Life Books. The series is an important case through which to expand the history of the photo book beyond the current historiographic orientation towards defining photo books as objects of exceptional quality. It demonstrates that Time-Life Books were ubiquitous and formulaic. Their serial form, their identical format, and their word/image configuration and layout saturated the visual culture of the mid-centur…
Visual History
This essay defines the category of "visual history" and introduces its operations across the essays included in this special issue. It proposes that such narratives accelerated time in cultures where it became increasingly common to traverse spatial distances. In this way, visual histories are not simply guides to the times, but guides to time itself
Networks
Paparazzi
Dimanche à Orly
Lynn Hunt
In this interview Lynn Hunt discusses why she studied the French Revolution, how she used images in her research, and why she cares about psychology. She also reflects on issues of affirmative action, intellectual style, and her recent retirement
The Foreign Film Renaissance on American Screens, 1946-1973
And God Created Woman is a sex film. It's called art because it's foreign” (p. 116). This quip by an American movie theater manager gets at the heart of the “film renaissance” described in Tino Balio's book about foreign films on American screens: the conflation of foreign films with art films. The ebb and flow of the popularity of foreign film in the United States is an interesting and important subject in film history. A book such as this could…
Capturing the Moment
Introduction
When the World Trade Center towers collapsed on 11 September 2001, many commentators noted that in their short lives, the towers had come to represent many things: American-led global capitalism, the United States and, most of all, New York City. Their brief role as a shorthand way of saying ‘New York City’ provoked us to ask about ‘urban icons’ more generally. But we did not need such cataclysm to provoke us to consider the topic of icons and th…
Spectacular Realities
During the second half of the nineteenth century, Paris emerged as the entertainment capital of the world. The sparkling redesigned city fostered a culture of energetic crowd-pleasing and multi-sensory amusements that would apprehend and represent real life as spectacle. Vanessa R. Schwartz examines the explosive popularity of such phenomena as the boulevards, the mass press, public displays of corpses at the morgue, wax museums, panoramas, and e…
Cinema and the Invention of Modern Life
Museums and Mass Spectacle
In 1887 theater critic and Parisian man-about-town Jules Lemaitre described a detour he took, during his evening stroll on the boulevards, into the Musee Grevin order to review our glories, to recollect the year's remarkable accomplishments. ' He was quick to add that the world reproduced inside the Musee Grevin was authentic, because in this museum, as in his own world, is wax and all will melt, sooner or later. A clear expression of the futilit…
"Late-Victorian "Unsolved Mysteries
Research Article| October 01 1993 Late-Victorian “Unsolved Mysteries” Vanessa R. Schwartz Vanessa R. Schwartz Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Radical History Review (1993) 1993 (57): 263–267. https://doi.org/10.1215/01636545-1993-57-263 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Twitter Permissions Search Site Citation Vanessa R. Schwartz; Late-Victorian “Unsolved Mysteries”. Radical History Review 1 October 1993; 1993 (57): 263–2…
Cinema and the Invention of Modern Life
Visual History
This essay defines the category of "visual history" and introduces its operations across the essays included in this special issue. It proposes that such narratives accelerated time in cultures where it became increasingly common to traverse spatial distances. In this way, visual histories are not simply guides to the times, but guides to time itself
Introduction
When the World Trade Center towers collapsed on 11 September 2001, many commentators noted that in their short lives, the towers had come to represent many things: American-led global capitalism, the United States and, most of all, New York City. Their brief role as a shorthand way of saying ‘New York City’ provoked us to ask about ‘urban icons’ more generally. But we did not need such cataclysm to provoke us to consider the topic of icons and th…
The Foreign Film Renaissance on American Screens, 1946-1973
And God Created Woman is a sex film. It's called art because it's foreign” (p. 116). This quip by an American movie theater manager gets at the heart of the “film renaissance” described in Tino Balio's book about foreign films on American screens: the conflation of foreign films with art films. The ebb and flow of the popularity of foreign film in the United States is an interesting and important subject in film history. A book such as this could…
Museums and Mass Spectacle
In 1887 theater critic and Parisian man-about-town Jules Lemaitre described a detour he took, during his evening stroll on the boulevards, into the Musee Grevin order to review our glories, to recollect the year's remarkable accomplishments. ' He was quick to add that the world reproduced inside the Musee Grevin was authentic, because in this museum, as in his own world, is wax and all will melt, sooner or later. A clear expression of the futilit…
"Late-Victorian "Unsolved Mysteries
Research Article| October 01 1993 Late-Victorian “Unsolved Mysteries” Vanessa R. Schwartz Vanessa R. Schwartz Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Radical History Review (1993) 1993 (57): 263–267. https://doi.org/10.1215/01636545-1993-57-263 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Twitter Permissions Search Site Citation Vanessa R. Schwartz; Late-Victorian “Unsolved Mysteries”. Radical History Review 1 October 1993; 1993 (57): 263–2…
Museums and Mass Spectacle
In 1887 theater critic and Parisian man-about-town Jules Lemaitre described a detour he took, during his evening stroll on the boulevards, into the Musee Grevin order to review our glories, to recollect the year's remarkable accomplishments. ' He was quick to add that the world reproduced inside the Musee Grevin was authentic, because in this museum, as in his own world, is wax and all will melt, sooner or later. A clear expression of the futilit…
Cinema and the Invention of Modern Life
Spectacular Realities
During the second half of the nineteenth century, Paris emerged as the entertainment capital of the world. The sparkling redesigned city fostered a culture of energetic crowd-pleasing and multi-sensory amusements that would apprehend and represent real life as spectacle. Vanessa R. Schwartz examines the explosive popularity of such phenomena as the boulevards, the mass press, public displays of corpses at the morgue, wax museums, panoramas, and e…
Introduction
When the World Trade Center towers collapsed on 11 September 2001, many commentators noted that in their short lives, the towers had come to represent many things: American-led global capitalism, the United States and, most of all, New York City. Their brief role as a shorthand way of saying ‘New York City’ provoked us to ask about ‘urban icons’ more generally. But we did not need such cataclysm to provoke us to consider the topic of icons and th…
Capturing the Moment
The Foreign Film Renaissance on American Screens, 1946-1973
And God Created Woman is a sex film. It's called art because it's foreign” (p. 116). This quip by an American movie theater manager gets at the heart of the “film renaissance” described in Tino Balio's book about foreign films on American screens: the conflation of foreign films with art films. The ebb and flow of the popularity of foreign film in the United States is an interesting and important subject in film history. A book such as this could…
Dimanche à Orly
Lynn Hunt
In this interview Lynn Hunt discusses why she studied the French Revolution, how she used images in her research, and why she cares about psychology. She also reflects on issues of affirmative action, intellectual style, and her recent retirement
Networks
Paparazzi
Visual History
This essay defines the category of "visual history" and introduces its operations across the essays included in this special issue. It proposes that such narratives accelerated time in cultures where it became increasingly common to traverse spatial distances. In this way, visual histories are not simply guides to the times, but guides to time itself
Photo book constellations
Given the prevalence of photography in books published in the last hundred years, it is surprising that ongoing and interrelated research on the topic is a relatively recent phenomenon, initiated a
‘Creatures of their Times’
This essay treats the history of Time-Life Books. The series is an important case through which to expand the history of the photo book beyond the current historiographic orientation towards defining photo books as objects of exceptional quality. It demonstrates that Time-Life Books were ubiquitous and formulaic. Their serial form, their identical format, and their word/image configuration and layout saturated the visual culture of the mid-centur…
Art (8 works) · Photography and Visual Culture (5 works) · Political science (5 works) · Sociology (5 works) · Art history (4 works) · Computer Science (4 works) · History (4 works) · Cinema and Media Studies (3 works) · Law (3 works) · Law (3 works)