Louis Kaplan

Professor Kaplan is recognized internationally for his innovative historical and theoretical contributions to the field of photography studies in such areas as spirit photography, photography and community, photographic humour, the New Vision, and photography theory.  His wide-ranging research interests include 20th and 21st century European and North American art and visual culture; film and media culture; deconstruction; contemporary Jewish art and visual culture; humour studies; and new media art practices (especially augmented reality).  Kaplan has published eleven books, three exhibition catalogues, and over eighty scholarly essays and articles.  He holds cross-appointments or affiliations with the Cinema Studies Institute, the Centre for Jewish Studies, the Centre for the Study of the United States, and the Knowledge Media Design Institute.  He has collaborated with the artist Melissa Shiff on research-creation projects incorporating new media including the highly acclaimed augmented reality exploration, Mapping Ararat, and, more recently, the virtual reality project, The Imaginary Jewish Homelands of I.N. Steinberg.  

Louis Kaplan has been awarded a Standard Research Grant as well as both Insight and Insight Development Grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.  His research appointments include Visiting Scholar at the Center for Jewish History in New York (2013-2014), Faculty Research Fellow at the Jackman Humanities Institute at the University of Toronto (2014-2015), and Getty Library Research Fellow at the Getty Research Institute in the summer of 2018.  His undergraduate teaching appointment is in the Department of Visual Studies at the Mississauga campus where he served as the inaugural Chair.