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; critical race theory; critical whiteness studies; scientific racism

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

Teaching (2019/20): My undergraduate teaching includes the Second Year elective Photography, Race, Whiteness, which looks at the visual and psychological basis of "seeing white" in relation to the history of "western" photography, engaging key themes such as the visual culture of the origins of racism in the "west", the photographic legacy of British and American colonialism post-1850, the colonial gaze, the white gaze, the white eye and white identity politics. I also tutor Third Year extended essays and dissertations and teach across other HCS modules.

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 practice and theory. 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.