Daniel Campbell Blight

General interests: history and theory of photography; photography and philosophy; the essay form; image-text relations; contemporary photographic art; contemporary photobooks; sociology of race; critical philosophy of race; racial capitalism; critical race theory; critical whiteness studies; scientific racism

Research specialisms: photography and racial whiteness; photography and race; photography and colonialism; photography and orientalism; photography and scientific racism; photography and literature; photography and the essay form

Teaching (2020/21): My undergraduate teaching includes the Second Year (Level 5, HCS4) elective Photography, Race, Whiteness, which considers the visual and social basis of "seeing white" in relation to the history of "western" colonialist, imperialist and orientalist photographies. The seminars critically engage themes such as the visual culture of the origins of modern racism in Britain and America, the photographic legacy of British colonialism, the colonial gaze, the white gaze and white identity politics. I also tutor Third Year (Level 6, HCS5) extended essays and dissertations, and teach across other Historical and Critical Studies modules on BA Photography.

At postgraduate level I organise the two Historical & Critical Studies modules taught within MA Photography. I am module leader for Contemporary Debates, a critical survey of key modes of thinking in photography theory which include seminars and workshops on Medium, Technology, Apparatus; Materiality, Immateriality, The Incorporeal; Automatic, Accident, Chance; Picturing, Stillness, Time; Truth, Fiction, Fictionality; Documentary Aesthetics; Queering Photography; Photography, Race, Whiteness and Photography and the Essay Form. I am also module leader for MA Dissertation.

Daniel C. Blight is a writer based in London. He works on various forms of the essay, fiction and poetry, and has written for 1000 Words, Aperture, Foam, frieze, The Guardian, Philosophy of Photography, Photoworks, Vogue Italia, Manchester Art Gallery, UCL Art Museum, Art Museum of Estonia, FOMU Belgium and the Australian Centre for Photography. His first book, The Image of Whiteness: Contemporary Photography and Racialization, was co-published by SPBH Editions and Art on the Underground in September 2019. 

He is Lecturer, Historical & Critical Studies in Photography, School of Media, University of Brighton, and has been a visiting lecturer at Camberwell College of Arts, Coventry University, Royal Academy of Art The Hague, Royal College of Art, University of Copenhagen, University of Fine Arts of Hamburg, University of Oxford and Yale University.