Kevin P. Coleman

Biography:

Kevin Coleman's research examines the intersection between capitalism and photography, primarily in Latin America. He is the author of A Camera in the Garden of Eden (2016), a number of book chapters and journal articles, as well as the Principal Investigator of Visualizing the Americas, a major digital humanities project. His research has been funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation / American Council of Learned Societies, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), and the United States Department of Education’s Fulbright-Hayes Fellowship.

With support from a SSHRC grant, he led three major collaborative inquiries into the relations between capitalism and photography: Capitalism and the Camera (2021), Photography and Culture (2020), and Radical History Review (2018). He is currently working on a documentary film, The Photos We Don’t Get to See, that attempts to make visible how physical violence gets repeated at the level of the archive.

Similar themes animate his teaching. Coleman offers courses in modern Latin American history, the history of capitalism, and advanced undergraduate seminars organized around a variety of themes, from religion to revolution and counterrevolution. His graduate offerings include the Images as History seminar on theory and methods for historians working with visual archives, and a seminar in Latin American history that provides students with a foundation for understanding the region’s key historiographic debates.

Education:

PhD (Indiana University)

Publications
Books:

• A Camera in the Garden of Eden: The Self-Forging of the Banana Republic (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2016).
• Sabían que estaban haciendo historia: La Huelga de 1954 en las fotos de Rafael Platero Paz. (Tegucigalpa: Editorial Guaymuras, 2019). (*This is a Spanish translation of parts of A Camera in the Garden of Eden (2016).)

Digital Humanities:

• Visualizing the Americas

Edited Volumes:

• Capitalism and the Camera. (New York: Verso, 2021) Edited with Daniel James.
• Photography and Culture, 13.2 (June 2020) Edited with Daniel James.
• Radical History Review, 132 (October 2018) Edited with Daniel James and Jayeeta Sharma.

Selected Awards, Grants, and Fellowships:

• Social Science and Humanities Research Council, Connection Grant, 2016. Social Science and Humanities Research Council, Insight Grant, 2014-2019.
• Connaught New Researcher Award, University of Toronto, 2014-2015.
• Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, Institutional Grant, 2013 – 2015.
• Andrew W. Mellon Foundation / American Council of Learned Societies Dissertation Completion Fellowship, 2011-2012.
• Future Faculty Teaching Fellowship, Indiana University, 2010-2011.
• Bernardo Mendel Fellowship, Indiana University, 2010.                                              
• Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship (DDRA). Honduras. United States Department of Education, 2008-2009.
• Shriver Practical Idealist Award, 2009.
• John H. Edwards Fellowship, Indiana University, 2008.
• Samuel F. Bemis Research Grant, The Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR), 2008.

Research Interests:

• Modern Latin American History
• Visual Culture
• History of Capitalism
• U.S.-Latin American Relations

Undergraduate Courses:

• Introduction to Latin American History
• Politics and Political Change in Latin America
• Religion and Society in Latin America
• History of Capitalism

Graduate Courses:

• Images as History: Photography
• Historical Method
• Conceptualizing Visuality

Related Link:

What is decolonizing education in the post-secondary setting?