Dr. Candace Keller

Biography

Candace M. Keller earned her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the Department of the History of Art at Indiana University, majored in African art, and minored in African Studies and African American art. Her work is driven by a commitment to intellectual and cultural diversity, aiming to bring African cultural practices and theoretical perspectives to a global audience. She emphasizes the critical value of an increasingly interconnected, transcultural world. With a specific focus on vernacular art and photography, her research investigates the ways in which cultural knowledge and markers of social identity are constructed, perpetuated, and contested through visual language systems. She considers individuals—artists, patrons, and audiences—ascribing meaning to images that traverse cultural contexts, cultivating a sense of social belonging and individuality while appreciating local means of visual expression. Her research and courses center around identity, personhood, complex agency, processes of transculturation, globalization, nationalism, and postcolonialism. Keller is the Director of the Archive of Malian Photography and Associate Director of the Matrix: Center for Digital Humanities and Social Sciences. Her research on the histories of photography in Mali, West Africa, has been featured in various publications and presentations, and she has generously received support from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the British Library. Her book, "Imaging Culture: Photography Mali, West Africa," was published by Indiana University Press in 2021.

Research Interests

Courses