The Victorian era witnessed the birth of photography and the rise of the illustrated press, creating a culture in which world events were increasingly defined by the production and consumption of images. This talk considers how new forms of visual media were used to picture global warfare and shape perceptions of colonial violence. It looks in particular at the method of producing images ‘in the field’ during conflict, exploring the fraught aesthetic and ethical issues that such a practice entailed for both participants and witnesses.

About the speaker:
Sean is Departmental Lecturer in the History of Art in the Department for Continuing Education at the University of Oxford, where he is Course Director for the Undergraduate Certificate and Diploma. He was previously a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at Birkbeck, University of London, and has held teaching positions at the Savannah College of Art and Design, Hong Kong, and on the Yale in London programme. He is Reviews Editor at the journal History of Photography. His first book, Victorian Visions of War and Peace: Aesthetics, Sovereignty and Violence in the British Empire, was published with the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art and Yale University Press in 2021.

This event is free and open to all. If you are booking to attend online, you will receive a link with your confirmation email.

Refreshments will be served from 5 pm in the Kellogg Hub, followed by the lecture at 5.30 pm.

If you have booked to attend in-person and cannot make it, or if you do not receive the link to join online, please email events@kellogg.ox.ac.uk