Minority Identities and Vernacular Visual Culture

Interdisciplinary symposium

May 9-10, 2025

Franke Institute for the Humanities, University of Chicago

Minority groups are often underrepresented in official archives, which has resulted in their continuing marginalization in historiography. Critical archive scholars argue for empowering such groups by developing and investigating archival collections. This symposium intends to expand this approach by demonstrating how the visual practices of underrepresented groups can be studied through underutilized data sources. To this end, the symposium focuses on indigenous, black, and diaspora communities seen through their visual production, with the presumption that the vernacular representations of everyday life can provide substantial insights into evolving minority identities. Therefore, it explores the interplay of vernacular visual practices and the transformations of minority identities by posing two broad research questions: What is the role of vernacular visual practice in shaping minority identities? How does looking at identity through vernacular images challenge pervasive representations of minority groups?

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FRIDAY, MAY 9

8:30-9:00 am: Coffee & snacks

9:00-11:30 Welcome & Panel 1

VERNACULAR AESTHETICS AND ARTISTIC METHODOLOGIES

Chair & discussant: Allyson Nadia Field (University of Chicago)

Chuck Jackson (University of Houston – Downtown)

Face First: 1970s Black Vernacular Aesthetics on 16mm in the Jessie Maple Collection

Avery LaFlamme (University of Chicago)

Ramon Williams’ Vernacular Realism

Megan Tusler (University of Chicago)

Walking, Working: Los Angeles on Foot in “Tangerine”

Chari Glogovac-Smith (University of California, Santa Cruz)

Amplifying Black Cultural Narratives through Immersive Artistic Methodologies

11:30-11:45 am: Coffee & snacks

11:45-1:45 Panel 2

VISUAL PRODUCTION IN COLONIAL AND POST-COLONIAL CONTEXT

Chair & discussant: Daniel R. Quiles (The School of the Art Institute of Chicago)

Emmanuel Ortega (University of Illinois Chicago) 

Beyond European Palettes: The Overlooked Contributions of Indigenized Artists in Mexico and the Invention of Popular Painting

Anabelle Suitor (Brown University)

Family Photographs in the Global Economy: The Multispecies Caste Economy of Fish Bladders

Hadas Zahavi (Columbia University)

Photo Washing: Reclaiming Algerian War Amateur Photography

1:45-2:45 pm: Lunch

2:45-4:15 Panel 3

MEDIA PRACTICES IN ISOLATION

Chair & discussant: Bożena Shallcross (University of Chicago) 

Phi Nguyen (Yale University)

On the Edge of Fate: Vietnamese Refugee Zines in Hong Kong Detention Centers

Eli Boonin-Vail (University at Albany)

Prison Vernacular: The Incarcerated Visual Culture of San Quentin

4:15-4:30 pm: Coffee & snacks

4:30-6:30 Panel 4

MOVING IMAGE AND MINORITY IDENTITIES

Chair & discussant: Jacqueline Najuma Stewart (University of Chicago)

Elizabeth Patton (University of Maryland, Baltimore County)

Reframing the Narrative: African American Home Movies and the Reimagining of National Identity

Dwight Swanson (Independent Researcher and Home Movie Archivist)

Hidden Reels: Unearthing Finnish-American Identity Through Home Movies

Ashley Dequilla (Filipino American Historical Society of Chicago)

Nicholas Viernes (1902-1991): Filipino Pioneer of Autonomous Cinema

6:30 pm: Reception

SATURDAY, MAY 10 

8:00-8:30 am: Coffee & snacks

8:30-10:30: Panel 5

GENDER AND MINORITY CULTURAL EXPRESSION

 Chair & discussant: Faime Alpagu (Columbia University)

Vince Ha (Queen’s University)

Fading Fragments: The Burden of Counter-Imagery in Gay Asians of Toronto’s Zine, 1983-1990

Joanna García Cherán (Stanford University)

“The Good Times and Bad Times”: Homegirls, Embodied Fantasy, and Commercial Photography in 1990s Southern California

Benjamin Arenstein (University of Chicago)       

Pornography, Jewish Masculinity, and the Latvian KGB: The Case of Josef Schneider

10:30-10:45 am: Coffee & snacks

10:45-13:15: Panel 6 & Closing remarks

HOME MEDIA AND FAMILY ARCHIVES

Chair & discussant: Eleonory Gilburd (University of Chicago)

Andrea F. Bohlman (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill)

Unhearing Happy Birthday: A Cassette Deck in the Polish American Kitchen

Madison Brown (Harvard Art Museums)

Homemade Intimacies

Faime Alpagu (Columbia University)

"I Keep Everything": Vernacular Archives and Gendered, Racialized Migrant Memory

Agata Zborowska (University of Chicago/ Katholieke Universiteit Leuven/University of Warsaw)

Negotiating Collective Identity in Vernacular Diaspora Archive

1:15 pm: Lunch

THE SYMPOSIUM ORGANIZERS

Agata Zborowska, University of Chicago, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, and University of Warsaw

Allyson Nadia Field, Department of Cinema and Media Studies, University of Chicago

Eleonory Gilburd, Department of History, University of Chicago

THE EVENT IS SPONSORED BY Franke Institute for the Humanities with the support from the Karla Scherer Center for the Study of American Culture, Department of Slavic Languages & Literature, Department of Race, Diaspora and Indigeneity, Department of History, Department of Cinema and Media Studies, Center for East European and Russia/Eurasian Studies (CEERES), Center for East Asian Studies, Committee on Southern Asian Studies, Institute for Media Studies, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven.

Cover image: Victoria Agatha Wielgus Sendra Film Collection. Image courtesy of Chicago Film Archives

Event visual: Aleksandra Wałaszek