James Michael Levinsohn

James Michael Levinsohn

First Name: 
James Michael
Last Name: 
Levinsohn
Title: 
PhD Candidate
Biography : 

James Michael Levinsohn is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Art History at the University of Toronto. Broadly speaking, his research focuses on figurative realism's persistence in photography and other media over the course of the twentieth century in Europe and North America, particularly when its deployment has reflected new historical conditions of sexuality, subjectivity, and urban space. He holds a BA in Art History with Honours from the University of Chicago (2012) and an MA in Art History from Rutgers University (2017). He has held curatorial positions at the Roman Vishniac Archive of the International Center of Photography (ICP), Museum of Modern Art, and the Princeton University Art Museum and taught a variety of undergraduate courses at Rutgers and the University of Toronto.

Selected Publications

  • "'Unreal, Purely Formal Relations': Realism in Christian Schad's Drawings of Queer Nightspots for Ein Führer durch das ‘lasterhafte’ Berlin (1931)". Ikonotheka 2022 (32): 101–121. DOI: https://doi.org/10.31338/2657-6015ik.32.6. 
  • Catalogue entries for "Untitled (urban panorama)" and "Untitled (Ice Houses)" by Catherine Opie. In The Public Image: Social Documentary Photography from the Collection of the Zimmerli Art Museum, edited by Donna Gustafson and Andres Mario Zervigon. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Dept. of Art History and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, 2016, pp. 30–32. https://issuu.com/zimmerli/docs/ebook.zim_thepublicimage_b4.

Honours, Awards and Grants

  • Mary H. Beatty Fellowship, 2021–22
  • W. Bernard Herman Fellowship, University of Toronto, 2021–22
  • SGS Research and Travel Conference Grants, 2022 and 2024
  • Art History Department Conference and Research Travel Grants, 2024–25
  • University of Toronto-France Partnership International Doctoral Cluster Fellow, 2024
Education: 
MA, Rutgers University, Art History, 2017
BA, Art History with Honours, University of Chicago, 2012

People Type:

Research Area:

Areas of Interest: 
  • History, theory, and criticism of photography
  • Photography as contemporary art (post-1960)
  • Documentary photography
  • Realism after modernism
  • German modern/contemporary art
  • Theories of space, embodiment, sensoriality, and subjectivity
  • Psychoanalysis and its legacy
  • Postmodernism and postmodernity
  • Urbanism and urban space
  • Vernacular photography
  • Gender/sexuality, esp. sexual minority cultures 

Program:

Cohort:

Dissertation Title: 
Realism Beyond Redemption: Wolfgang Tillmans and Photography after Postmodernism
Dissertation Supervisors: 
Louis Kaplan
Alison Syme
Jordan Bear
Presentations: 
"'Photography Without the Prick of Desire': Wolfgang Tillmans’ i didn’t inhale (1997) and the Post-Psychoanalytic Subject". 113th College Art Association Annual Conference, New York, NY, USA. "Ungovernable Bodies" Session. Forthcoming 13 February 2025.
“Sophie Calle’s Des histoires vraies: Rethinking the Photographic Body Beyond Presence”. 36th World CIHA Congress: Matter/Materiality, Lyon, France. Forthcoming June 2024.
"What Queer Obscures: Photography in John Jack Baylin's Bum Bank." Association for Art History (AAH) 50th Annual Conference, Dept. of History of Art, University of Bristol, UK. "Queer Photography Now" Session. 3 April 2024.
"You're Shit and I'm Champagne: Sexuality, Aggression, and the Refusal of Repair in Todd Solondz's Happiness (1998)", Unlovable: The Centre for Comparative Literature's 31st Annual Conference, University of Toronto, ON, Canada. 25 March 2023.
“Augmenting the Closet: Stonewall Forever (2019) as Unfinished Digital Monument”, Works in Process: Dimensions of Becoming in the Arts, DFG Research Group Dimensions of techne in the Fine Arts. Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany. 6 October 2022.
Administrative Service: 
Co-Chair, Wollesen Memorial Symposium Committee, University of Toronto Dept. of Art History, 2019-20
Wollesen Memorial Symposium Committee Member and Respondent, 2021-23
Social Coordinator, Graduate Union of Students of Art History, 2022-23
Managing Editor, Rutgers Art Review Volume 33/34 (2018)
Co-Chair, Distinguished Speaker Series and Student/Faculty Symposium Committees, Rutgers University Dept. of Art History, 2015-17

Campus: