University of Southern California

Graduate Students


Matthew Amato


Contact Information

E-mail: amatom@usc.edu


Biographical Sketch


I am a sixth-year Americanist specializing in nineteenth-century cultural, social, and intellectual history.  Currently, I am working on my dissertation, "Exposing Humanity: Slavery, Antislavery, and Early Photography in America, 1839-1865."  I will complete this project in the 2012-2013 academic year through the support of a Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Completion Fellowship.


Education

  • B.A. Harvard University, 06/2006


Employment History

  • Teaching Assistant, University of Southern California, 2008 - 2010
  • Research Assistant, Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education, 2007-2008

Research


Research Specialties


  • United States, 19th Century, Slavery and Abolitionism, Race and Ethnicity, Visual Culture

Conference Presentations

  • "Capturing a Movement: American Abolitionism and Interracial Photography," Penn State, The Africana Research Center and the Richards Civil War Era Center (Invited), 1/2013
  • "Slavery in the Age of Photography," Second Annual Anne Friedberg Memorial Grant Lecture, USC. Talk received Banner Prize for best graduate essay in the USC History Department, 2011-2012, 4/2012
  • "Bringing the Master-Slave Relationship Into Focus: Photographic Slave Portraits in the American South, 1839-1861," Material Matters Conference, Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library, 4/2012
  • “Photographic Acts of Possession and Liberation in Mid-Nineteenth-Century America," American Antiquarian Society, 2/2012
  • "Exposing Humanity," Mellon Fellows Colloquium at the Virginia Historical Society, 8/2011

Honors and Awards

  • Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Completion Fellowship, 2012-2013   
  • Mellon Fellowship for Dissertation Research in Original Sources, Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR), 2011-2012   
  • Anne Friedberg Memorial Grant, USC Visual Studies Graduate Committee, Spring 2011   
  • Jay and Deborah Last Fellowship, American Antiquarian Society, Spring 2011   
  • Mellon Research Fellowship, Virginia Historical Society, Spring 2011   
  • Research Grant, Clements Center-DeGolyer Library at Southern Methodist University, Spring 2011   
  • Research Grant, Frances S. Summersell Center for the Study of the South, University of Alabama, Spring 2011   
  • Dissertation Proposal Development Fellowship, Social Science Research Council, 5/2009-9/2009