Louis Kaplan

Louis Kaplan has taught at the University of Toronto since 2002 and he currently serves as Associate Chair and Director of Graduate Studies. He is recognized internationally for his innovative historical and theoretical contributions to the field of photography studies in such areas as spirit photography, photography and community, photographic humour, the New Vision, and photography theory. His wide-ranging research interests include 20th and 21st century European and North American art and visual culture; film and media culture; deconstruction; contemporary Jewish art and visual culture; humour studies; and new media art practices (especially augmented reality). He is the author of numerous books, exhibition catalogues, and articles in these areas of interest as well as contributor to collaborative digital art/media based projects (e.g., Mapping Ararat: An Imaginary Jewish Homelands Project). His most recent book publication (with Scott Michaelsen) is a study of the fascinating and elusive American spoken word artist and New Age mystic known only as Xxenogenesis. He also has edited a catalogue (with Deborah Dash Moore) entitled Camera as Passport: The Ship of Photographers (2024) based on their co-curated exhibition about Jewish refugee photographers on the S.S. Winnipeg at the University of Michigan (where he was a Visiting Professor this past academic year, 2023-24).  Professor Kaplan is currently working on a full-length interdisciplinary project "Jewish Photographic Humour in Dark Times: Reflections on Visual First Responders to the Third Reich."  He has been awarded a Standard Research Grant as well as both Insight and Insight Development Grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for his researches.  His undergraduate teaching appointment is in the Department of Visual Studies at the Mississauga campus where he served as inaugural Chair.

Honours, Awards, and Grants

• Visiting Professor of Judaic Studies, Frankel Institute, University of Michigan, Fall Semester 2023 and in conjunction with seminar theme year on "Jewish Visual Cultures" (2023-24).
• Getty Library Research Fellow, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, CA (Summer 2018).
• Jackman Humanities Institute Faculty Fellow, University of Toronto (2014-2015).
• Visiting Scholar, Center for Jewish History, New York, NY (2013-2014).

Professional Affiliations

• Editorial Board Memberships: CR: The New Centennial Review, Photography and Culture, and History of Photography
• Professional Organizations: Association for Jewish Studies, Universities Art Association of Canada, College Art Association

Selected Publications

• The Revelations of Xxenogenesis, co-authored with Scott Michaelsen (Metanoia Press, 2024).
• At Wit's End: The Deadly Discourse on the Jewish Joke (Fordham University Press, 2020).
• Photography and Humour (Reaktion Books London/University of Chicago Press, 2017).
• Living Photographs - Arthur Mole (RVB Books, Paris, 2015).
• The Strange Case of William Mumler, Spirit Photographer (University of Minnesota Press, 2008). Nominated for the John Hope Franklin Prize of the American Studies Association.
• American Exposures: Photography and Community in the Twentieth Century (University of Minnesota Press, 2005).
• Laszlo Moholy-Nagy: Biographical Writings (Duke University Press, 1995).