News & Updates - Vanessa R. Schwartz

On December 5, 2024, Vanessa Schwartz will deliver the lecture, “Image History/History in Images” at the University Museum, University of British Columbia.
On October 31, 2024, Vanessa Schwartz delivered the lecture, “’What is this stuff doing in the Met?’: The Eames’ American Bicentennial Exhibition” for the Kunsthistorisches Institut at the University of Tübingen.
On October 23, 2024, Vanessa Schwartz delivered the keynote lecture, “On Media Moguls,” at the Transmedia Empires Conference in Paris.
On October 16, 2024, Vanessa Schwartz presented her talk, “Around the World with Mike Todd,” at the Jules Verne, Around the World Conference in Amiens.
In May 2024, Vanessa Schwartz’s essay on Taylor Swift’s “Getaway Car” was published in Voyages Enchantés, edited by Raphaël Pieroni and Jean-François Staszak. Read the essay here.
On March 6, 2024, Vanessa Schwartz gave a lecture titled “Globetrotting and The History of the World Tour” for the Department of Geography at the University of Geneva.
In March 2024, Vanessa Schwartz served as Professeur Invité at Ecole des Chartes (National School of Patrimony) in Paris. There, she gave a Distinguished Lecture titled “The Visual Archive” on March 26.
On December 5, 2023, Vanessa Schwartz was interviewed by the Los Angeles Times for the article, “‘Barbie’s’ influence hasn’t slowed down. Pink Crocs and gender equality, anyone?” Read the article here.
In September 2023, Vanessa Schwartz traveled to Switzerland to participate in a conference on the history of timepieces in La Chaux de Fonds at the International Clock Museum.
On July 16, 2023 Vanessa Schwartz was interviewed by the Boston Globe for the article, “Some Travel Traditions are Quickly and Quietly Fading Away: Mapping the Demise of Objects Tied to Journeys.” Link to article can be found here.
In Summer 2023 Vanessa Schwartz & W.J.T. Mitchell co-taught VISS 599: Images Out of Time. This class was taught online via Zoom from July 10 to August 4, 2023.
Vanessa Schwartz is a co-PI on an international, interdisciplinary, multi-year project directed by Jean-François Staszak, (Geography, University of Geneva): “Globetrotting: Touring Round the World (1869-1914),” which was selected for funding of close to one million Swiss Francs by Fonds National de la Recherche Scientifique (Suisse) (FNRS) for 2023-2026.The project gathers an international and interdisciplinary team to study the rise of globetrotters who made “tours du monde” as amateurs and the special role such trips made to the rise of mass tourism (as opposed to exploration, journalism, diplomacy) from the 1870s to 1914. We are especially interested in how new forms of travel and modes of publication and dissemination of both written and visual accounts (stereoscopic photo sets and films) not only re-figured concepts of the planetary but also fostered the development of new written and visual forms and styles. The team has exclusive access to the archive of one Swiss traveler, which will form the kernel for an exhibition; it includes specialists who study the only non-Western globetrotters of the period from Japan; and accords with the Visual Studies Research Institute’s expertise using commercial images as well as our on-going examination of how images define space, time, and physical and virtual circulation.
Reviews of “City of Cinema: Paris 1850-1907,” an exhibition at LACMA which Vanessa Schwartz co-curated, (on view February 20 – July 10, 2022) may be found in the following venues: