Vanessa Schwartz
Center, Institute & Lab Affiliations
- Visual Studies Research Institute, Director
- Visual Studies Graduate Certificate, Director
Biography
Vanessa R. Schwartz is Professor of Art History and History at the University of Southern California, where she directs the Visual Studies Research Institute and its graduate certificate program. A graduate of Princeton University (Magna Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa, 1986) she received her PhD in History at the University of California, Berkeley in 1993.
Schwartz specializes in 19th and 20th c. European and American visual culture, especially photography, film and design. Her book Jet Age Aesthetic: The Glamour of Media in Motion (Yale University Press, 2020) was supported by a Millard Meiss award from the College Art Association and a Furthermore Foundation grant. With Jason Hill, she co-edited Getting the Picture: The Visual Culture of the News (2015). She was also a co-curator for “Enfin le cinéma!” which opened at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, September 2021, and co-curator of the related show “City of Cinema: Paris 1850-1907” which opened at LACMA in February 2022.
She is currently a co-PI on a one million Swiss franc project funded by the Swiss National Research Fund, “Globetrotting: Touring Around the World” (1869-1914) and is co-editing a journal special issue on photobooks as intermedial constellations. Her own contribution relates to the history of Time-Life Books. This work is also part of a new book project: “When the Past Became Present: Visual History in the Age of Mechanical Reproducibility.”
She has written extensively about Paris in the late 19th century and the origins of mass visual culture in her books Spectacular Realities: Early Mass Culture in fin-de-siècle Paris (1998); Cinema and the Invention of Modern Life (1995) and It’s So French! Hollywood, Paris and the Making of Cosmopolitan Film Culture (2007). She is also the author of Modern France: A Very Short Introduction (2011).
She has been awarded many fellowships and grants, notably from the Mellon Foundation, the Getty Research Institute, The Cullman Center at the New York Public Library and the Guggenheim Foundation. She has held distinguished professorships at Stanford, the Ecole des Hautes Etudes, Paris; the University of Geneva, the Sorbonne, McGill and the Hebrew University.
She has directed PhD students and post-doctoral fellows in History, Art History and Film Studies. Each dissertation has been published and all students are gainfully employed; many in tenured or tenure-track positions (MIT, CAL TECH, University of Delaware, University of Minnesota, Pratt) or as curators or writers.
Education
- Ph.D. History, University of California, Berkeley, 5/1993
- M.A. History, University of California, Berkeley, 5/1989
- B.A. History, Princeton University, 6/1986
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Tenure Track Appointments
- Director , Visual Studies Research Institute , 09/01/2015 –
- Professor, History and Art History, University of Southern California, 01/01/2007 –
- Associate Professor of History, University of Southern California, 01/01/2000 –
- Associate Professor of History, The American University, Washington, D.C., 01/01/1999 – 01/01/2000
- Assistant Professor of History, The American University, Washington D.C., 01/01/1993 – 01/01/1999
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Summary Statement of Research Interests
Schwartz specializes in 19th and 20th c. European and American visual culture, especially such commercial forms as photography, film and design. She is the author, most recently, of Jet Age Aesthetic: The Glamour of Media in Motion (Yale University Press, 2020). She was also a co-curator for “Enfin le cinéma!” which opened at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, September 2021, and co-curator of the related show “City of Cinema: Paris 1850-1907” which opened at LACMA in February 2022.
She is currently a co-PI on a one million Swiss franc project funded by the Swiss National Research Fund, “Globetrotting: Touring Around the World” (1869-1914) and is co-editing a journal special issue on photobooks as intermedial constellations. Her own contribution relates to the history of Time-Life Books. This work is also part of a new book project: “When the Past Became Present: Visual History in the Age of Mechanical Reproducibility.”
She has written extensively about Paris in the late 19th century and the origins of mass visual culture in her books Spectacular Realities: Early Mass Culture in fin-de-siècle Paris (1998); Cinema and the Invention of Modern Life (1995) and It’s So French! Hollywood, Paris and the Making of Cosmopolitan Film Culture (2007). She is also the author of Modern France: A Very Short Introduction (2011).
She has co-edited several volumes and journal special issues such as The Nineteenth Century Visual Culture Reader (2000) and Getting the Picture: The Visual Culture of the News (2015).
Research Keywords
Visual Culture, Photography, Film, 1800-present; Europe, France, United States, Paris, Jet Age, urban studies, transatlantic culture, entertainment, transportation and technology
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Contracts and Grants Awarded
- Globetrotters: Around the World (1869-1914), (Swiss National Research Fund), Jean-Francois Staszak, Vanessa Schwartz, et. al, $1,000,000, 01/01/2023 – 02/01/2026
- Images out of Time, (NEH), Megan Luke, Vanessa Schwartz, David Albertson, Nancy Lutkehaus, Pani Norindr, $150,000, 09/01/2022 – 06/30/2025
- Visual History: The Past In Pictures, (Mellon Sawyer Seminar), Vanessa Schwartz, Daniela Bleicher, $175,000, 2016-2017
- Caught In the Act: History of Photojournalism Conference, (Borchard Foundation), Vanessa Schwartz, $35,000, 2008-2009
- Digital Dove Project, (California Council for the Humanities), Covenant House, $80,000, 06/01/2007 – 06/01/2008
USC Funding
- Successful Funding Proposal. Visual Studies Research Institute: College 20/20 Proposal.
Kate Flint, PI., $300000, 2010-2011 - USC Provost’s Office, Advancing Scholarship in the Humanities and Social Sciences. The Dawn of the Jet Age: Research Project on the effect of the introduction of jets on culture of time and space., $17500, 07/01/2009 – 08/01/2010
- Graduate Dean Funding. Grant-Writing Workshop: Organized and Executed a day-long intensive grant-writing workshop for graduate students in the Visual Studies Graduate Certificate (although open to other students in the College)., $6800, Fall 2008
- Shoah Foundation Grant. Teaching with the Oral Testimonies: With the help of a graduate assistant, I culled materials from the Shoah Foundation to use in classes I teach, not related to the Holocaust., $5000, Fall 2008
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- Guggenheim Fellowship Recipient, , 2017-2018
- Lindbergh Chair and Fellowship, National Air and Space Museum, Fall 2017
- Cullman Center, New York Public Library, 2015-2016
- Residency at the Getty Center for Humanities and Arts, The News in Black and White — and Color, Fall 2012
- USC Raubenheimer Outstanding Senior Faculty Award, , Fall 2009
- Mellon Graduate Mentoring Award, Spring 2009
- USC or School/Dept Award for Teaching, Parents’ Association, Honorable Mention, Spring 2009
- Book Prize, Phi Alpha Theta Best Subsequent Book Award, 2007-2008
- Book Prize: Chinard Prize from Society for French Historical Studies, 2007-2008
- Social Science Research Council DPDF Workshop, 2007/05/01-2007/09/01
- USC Zumberge Research and Innovation Fund Award, Visual Culture Project, 2004-2005
- Gamma Sigma Alpha, Professor of the Year, 2004
- USC Center for Interdisciplinary Research, 2002-2003
- USC Associates Award For Excellence In Teaching, Popular Culture/Visual Culture, 2001-2002
- Fellow, Humanitie Research Institute, UCI, 1997
- Fulbright Award, Fellowship, 1990-1991
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Professional Memberships
- College Art Association, 2004 –
- American History Association, 1993 –
- Society for Cinema and Media Studies, 01/01/1993 –