Unpacking an Image: In Conversation with Marni Sandweiss
February 12, 2026, 12:00 – 1:00pm PST
Dr. Sandweiss explores what one photograph can reveal about a Civil War photographer, his subjects, and the world around him. In 1868, celebrated Civil War photographer Alexander Gardner posed six federal government peace commissioners with a young Indigenous girl wrapped in a blanket. The hand-labeled prints carefully name each of the men, but the girl is never identified. In her book, The Girl in the Middle, Dr. Sandweiss searches for the girl’s identity, and draws readers into the entangled lives of the photographer and his subjects. In conversation with Dr. Bill Deverell, this webinar will explore Dr. Sandweiss’ research and work.
Register Now: https://bit.ly/drsandweiss
Martha A. Sandweiss is professor emerita of history at Princeton University, where she is founding director of the Princeton & Slavery Project. She is the award-winning author of many books, including Passing Strange: A Gilded Age Tale of Love and Deception across the Color Line and Print the Legend: Photography and the American West.
This is part of ICW’s Photography in the American West Webinar Series: Conversations about how photography captures the complexity of the West and what images reveal about this space, the photographers who made them, and the scholars who study both.
Photo Credit: Alexander Gardner, 1868.
Photo Clubs in the West: In Conversation with Carolin Görgen
Thursday, February 19, 2026, 12:00 – 1:00pm PST
Join ICW as we host Carolin Görgen, Associate Professor of American Studies at Sorbonne Université. Dr. Görgen will share her research on the California Camera Club, one of the largest photography networks in the early 20th century. Dr. Görgen will be joined by Dr. Bill Deverell, ICW Co-Director.
Register Now: https://bit.ly/CGörgen
Carolin Görgen is Associate Professor of American Studies at Sorbonne Université. A historian of photography and the American West, she researches the histories of photo networks in the western United States and their environmental afterlives. Görgen’s research has been supported among others by the Terra Foundation for American Art, the Huntington Library, and the Thomas Mann House. She was a 2025 Fulbright Visiting Scholar at the University of California, Los Angeles.
This is part of ICW’s Photography in the American West Webinar Series: Conversations about how photography captures the complexity of the West and what images reveal about this space, the photographers who made them, and the scholars who study both.
Imagery of Water: In Conversation with Photographer Brad Temkin
February 26, 2026, 12:00 – 1:00pm PST
ICW will host photographer Brad Temkin, who uses photographs to explore the delicate interdependence between people, infrastructure, and the natural water and land systems in the American West. This lively conversation will include a specific focus on the story of the Los Angeles Aqueduct and the Owens Valley, facilitated by Dr. Bill Deverell.
Register Now: https://bit.ly/bradtemkin
Brad Temkin is a photographer whose work has been exhibited internationally, including at The Field Museum, the Chicago Cultural Center, the Sivori Art Museum (Buenos Aires), the Southeastern Museum of Photography, the New Mexico Museum of Art, the George Eastman Museum, and the Museum of Contemporary Photography, among others. His photographs are held in the permanent collections of institutions such as The Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Amon Carter Museum, the George Eastman Museum, and the Museum of Contemporary Photography.
Temkin’s work has been featured in Aperture, TIME, Black & White Magazine, and European Photography. He was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2017 and has received two Illinois Arts Council Fellowships (2007 and 2024). He is the author of three monographs: Private Places, Rooftop, and The State of Water. Temkin has taught photography at Columbia College Chicago since 1984 and continues to mentor emerging artists.
This is part of ICW’s Photography in the American West Webinar Series: Conversations about how photography captures the complexity of the West and what images reveal about this space, the photographers who made them, and the scholars who study both.
Photo Credit: Brad Temkin
Western Edition Season 5 Podcast: Watersheds West
The infrastructure of water control looms large across the history of the American West. Western rivers and watersheds have long been and remain fundamental sites of contest and power, hope and disappointment. Launching in January 2026, this new season of Western Edition — the podcast from the Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West (ICW) — digs into the complex history of how humans dammed, diverted, and exploited water resources in the region across several hundred years.
While control over water has gone hand in hand with European and American colonization, Western Edition: Watersheds West takes care to engage with Indigenous scholars about Native views of and relationships to western water. The series returns to the critical question: What does the future look like in an era of climate catastrophe? Across its six episodes, the new season invites us all to consider if we are due for a paradigm shift in how we think about our most precious resource.