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PHRC is pleased to announce the second season of its Research Seminars in Photographic Cultures and Heritage, a free, online series of talks and discussions exploring photography’s intersections with politics, technology, and cultural production.

The series investigates the rich and evolving field of photographic cultures and heritage, bringing together researchers, practitioners, and third-sector professionals to examine photography as a cultural artifact, historical record, and dynamic form of communication.

With a focus on critical methodologies, material practices, and global perspectives, the series addresses themes such as archival ethics, indigenous and everyday photography, technological shifts, memory and identity, and the politics of visual representation, dissemination and perception.

Through interdisciplinary talks and discussions, the seminars aim to expand and foster innovative insights into how photography and photographic practices are both shaping and shaped by cultural heritage – across time and space.

The programme for Semester Two 2025/26 includes three talks:

19 February 2026, 5.30pm – Associate Professor Donna West Brett (University of Sydney, Australia), “A Strange Tissue of Space and Time’: Modernist Photobooks & Propaganda”

26 March 2026, 5.30pm – Professor Sarah Parsons (York University, Toronto, Canada), “Feeling Exposed: Early Photography and Privacy in the United States”

7 May 2026, 5.30pm – PhD Candiate Javed Sultan (De Montfort University / Photographic History Research Centre), Constructing Dissent: Photojournalism and the Democratic Transition in Postcolonial India (1970s)”

Attendance and Registration

The seminars will be held online via Microsoft Teams and are free of charge.

Those wishing to attend one or more of the talks on the current season are kindly asked to register through the  link below, with a joining link sent to registered participants one hour before the scheduled start.

https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/photographic-history-research-centre-phrc

Professor Kelley Wilder, director of De Montfort University’s (DMU) Photographic History Research Centre (PHRC) is leaving  the university at the end of this month as the university concludes a wider staff consultation and redundancy programme. Wilder has been at DMU since 2008 when she was appointed to develop and write the ground-breaking MA Photographic History and Practice course which started in 2009. The MA moved online from the 2024/25 academic year. She was awarded her Professorship in 2019.

The PHRC was established in 2011 with Professor Elizabeth Edwards as its inaugural director. It specialised in international and interdisciplinary research on photography and its theories and practices from the 19th century to the present day. Wilder took over as director in 2016.

Kelley Wilder is photographic historian and historian of science of international repute. Her interests range across cultures of science and knowledge generated by photography and photographic practice, and photographic archives.  She has published papers and several books and has a particular interest in the photographic practices of nineteenth century scientists, notably, William Henry Fox Talbot, Sir John Herschel, Henri Becquerel and others. Prior to joining DMU Wilder was the assistant editor of the Talbot Correspondence Project. She has a book in development and other research projects in hand. 

The MA course and PHRC have been responsible for nurturing and training a new generation of photographic historians and artist-practitioners. Many of the PHRC’s former students now occupy positions across academia and museums and galleries in the United Kingdom, Europe and North America.  In addition, the university library’s special collections has become an important repository of photographic history materials. It houses the former Kodak Ltd research library, several photographic institutions’ archives and significant collections of historical photographic materials.The university also hosts online photo-history resources.  

The PHRC will continue and its teaching staff will remain in place. BPH understands that a new director will be announced shortly, and new MA and PhD student supervisory teams are being set up for existing students. The autumn seminar programme is in place and it is likely that the annual conference in 2026 will go ahead. The university has contacted students individually. 

DMU’s redundancy programme is part of a wider restructuring announced in May with, then, 94 posts at risk and 80 roles set to be cut. The Leicester-based university is repositioning itself as it seeks to cut spending by £22 million in 2025, manage falling student numbers, and deal with the costs of setting up new campuses in London and Dubai. The latter was set up after DMU terminated a partnership with World Study Group in 2024 which is now the subject of a costly dispute. The restructuring announcement led to calls for the Vice Chancellor and Executive to resign.

See: BBC news story: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp3nnge3v1wo
Staff profile: https://www.dmu.ac.uk/about-dmu/academic-staff/art-design-humanities/kelley-wilder/kelley-wilder.aspx
Kelley Wilder's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelley-wilder-62b0457a/

Images: top: De Montfort University; right: Kelley Wilder. left: (l-r) Roger Taylor, Elizabeth Edwards, Kelley Wilder and Stephen Brown co-founders of the PHRC celebrate its first anniversary in May 2012. Photos top and left: Michael Pritchard.    

A reminder that there this still time to register for next week's PHRC conference.

The Photographer's Assistants

17-18 June Hybrid conference

Keynotes:

Michael Pritchard - Educating the Photographer's Assistant

Omar Nasim -  At the Beck and Call of the Astronomers: Emulsion Makers as Photographic Assistants

Registration Here

Dear All, Photographic Exhibitiosn in Britain 1839-1865 is back up and running. Thank you for your patience!  Happy Researching!

Kelley Wilder. Photographic History Research Centre