Emily Godbey – The Conversation

Associate Professor, Art and Visual Culture, Iowa State University

Highlighting representations of disaster, death, illness, and scandal, Dr. Godbey’s work deals with photography, film, art, and popular culture approximately from the nineteenth century to the present. She has researched three-dimensional images of the U.S. Civil War dead, nudity during World Exhibitions, insane asylums, tourism related to sites of tragedy, and memorial photography. Additionally, she is interested in how this difficult content became the subject matter for visual entertainment commodities during the nineteenth century, a practice that continues into the present day.
She received her Ph.D. and M.A. in Art History from the University of Chicago, her M.F.A. from the Rhode Island School of Design, and her B.A. from Princeton University.

Experience

2005–present

Associate professor, Department of Art & Visual Culture, Iowa State University

Education

University of Chicago, Ph.D., Art History
University of Chicago, MA, Art History
Rhode Island School of Design, Master of Fine Arts, Photography
Princeton University, BA, Comparative Literature

Publications

2018

“Trilby Goes Naked and Native on the Midway”, The Trans-Mississippi And International Expositions of 1898-1899: Art, Anthropology and Popular Culture at the Fin de Siècle
2012

“‘Terrible Fascination’: Civil War Stereographs of the Dead” , History of Photography, 36:3
2011

“Making Memories: Tragic Tourism’s Visual Traces” , Rhetoric, Remembrance, and Visual Form: Sighting Memory

Grants and Contracts

2008

National Endowment for the Humanities Chair

Role:

Albright College

Funding Source:

National Endowment for the Humanities

Professional Memberships

College Art Association
Nineteenth Century Studies Association
American Studies Association

Honours

National Endowment for the Humanities Chair (Albright College)