@epvcjournal
Early Popular Visual Culture (EPVC) is a peer-reviewed, academic journal dedicated to stimulating research and interdisciplinary studies in relation to all forms of popular visual culture before 1930. https://www.tandfonline.com/journals/repv20
We are delighted that our special issue on Early Cinema in the British Colonies has been nominated for a @baftss.bsky.social publication award! You can read the introduction and several of the articles for free here www.tandfonline.com/toc/repv20/2...
Issue 23:3 is now available online, featuring visual responses to an 18th-century earthquake, transhumanism in the films of Georges Méliès, anti-capitalist critique in fin-de-siècle print culture, princely imagery in India, and Robinson Crusoe trading cards www.tandfonline.com/toc/repv20/2...
New open access EPVC article online, part of an upcoming special issue on cosmoramas and other 19th-century peep practices:
Victor Flores, Imperial visions on tour: cosmoramas, neoramas, and Eurocentrism in Andorfer’s Grand Optical Gallery www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Super excited to say my article is out on newspaper reports of clothing of the rulers of princely states @epvcjournal.bsky.social
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
New issue alert: our special double issue on Early Cinema in the British Colonies is out today, guest edited by Mario Slugan and James Burns. You can read the editors' introduction for free here: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
We're excited to share a call for contributions to an upcoming special issue of EPVC on "Teaching Silent Cinema Today", guest edited by Carolyn Condon Jacobs and @aurspiers.bsky.social.
Share your experiences of teaching silent cinema and your ideas for how it could be taught in the future.
New CFP!! Special Issue of Early Popular Visual Culture @epvcjournal.bsky.social about TEACHING SILENT CINEMA TODAY guest-edited by Carolyn Condon Jacobs and myself!! Please share!!
New (Open Access) article alert: Stephen Putnam Hughes explores what we can learn about early cinema in colonial Bombay, beginning with a single archival photograph doi.org/10.1080/1746...
The latest issue of EPVC is online, featuring new research into Victorian 3-D portraits, stereoscopy and perception, and tiger photography in colonial India www.tandfonline.com/toc/repv20/2...
Happy Saint Patrick's Day! ☘️
Photo of a woman selling drinks to tourists, Gap of Dunloe, Killarney, c. 1890-1914
From Gail Bayliss, ‘Exchanging looks: Gap girls and colleens in early Irish tourist photography’, volume 10, issue 4: doi.org/10.1080/1746...
Image: National Library of Ireland
Happy International Women’s Day! #IWD2025
Image of LE BATEAU DE LÉONTINE (1911, Eye Filmmuseum) from Maggie Hennefeld, Laura Horak & Elif Rongen-Kaynakçi’s article ‘Gender and the Nasty Women of History’ (2022), part of our special double issue on The Gender of Early Cinema: doi.org/10.1080/1746...
Advert for the New Douglas Theatre, Harlem, from the early sound era (courtesy of Cinema Treasures)
And from our 2023 special issue on The Silent Film Era and Marginalised Spectatorships, Agata Frymus investigates Black moviegoing in the United States during the silent era.
‘White screens, Black fandom: silent film and African American spectatorship in Harlem’: doi.org/10.1080/1746...
Image of P. G. Lowery's Band
From 2017, Sakina M. Hughes explores how African American and Native American performers navigated the world of the travelling circus in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
‘Walking the tightrope between racial stereotypes and respectability’: doi.org/10.1080/1746...
Image courtesy of NYPL
Front cover of Uplift Cinema (Duke University Press, 2015)
From 2016, Matthew A. Feltman reviews Allyson Nadia Field’s book Uplift Cinema: The Emergence of African American Film and the Possibility of Black Modernity (2015): doi.org/10.1080/1746...
Image courtesy of Duke University Press
Portrait photograph of Sojourner Truth
From 2007, Mandy Reid explores the competing uses of photography by 19th-century 'race science' and the abolitionist and activist Sojourner Truth
‘Selling Shadows and Substance: Photographing Race in the United States, 1850–1870s’: doi.org/10.1080/1746...
Image courtesy of the Library of Congress
As this year’s Black History Month in the USA & Canada comes to a close, we wanted to highlight some of the research into Black visual culture, race and representation published in EPVC... 🧵
The second part of our special issue on the British Silent Film Festival & Symposium is now online, including open access articles on William Friese-Greene, silent film music and Maurice Elvey www.tandfonline.com/toc/repv20/2...
Book Reviews Editor for post-1900 material:
Dr Aurore Spiers, Assistant Professor of Film & Media Studies in the College of Performance, Visualization & Fine Arts at Texas A&M University, USA.
Research Topics: Feminist film historiography, silent cinema, French and US women filmmakers
Book Reviews Editor for pre-1900 material:
Dr Francesca Arnavas, Research Fellow and Lecturer in Comparative Literature and Literary Theory at the University of Tartu, Estonia
Research Topics: Cognitive narratology, Lewis Carroll, Victorian literature, fairy tales
Dr Nadi Tofighian, Senior Lecturer in Film Studies at the Department of Film and Literature, Linnaeus University, Sweden
Research Topics: Colonial history, early cinema, film distribution, documentary and ethnographic film, postcolonial theory, Southeast Asia
Dr Mario Slugan, Senior Lecturer in Film Studies, Queen Mary University of London, UK
Research Topics: Early cinema in the colonies, understanding of fiction in early cinema
Dr Chris O'Rourke, Associate Professor in Film and Television Studies, University of Warwick, UK
Research Topics: Film history, silent cinema, queer and trans studies, British cinema
Submissions Editor:
Dr Agata Frymus, Senior Lecturer in Film and Television Studies at Monash University Malaysia
Research Topics: Film history, star studies, race and ethnicity, audiences
Meet the Editorial Team