Alumnus/Alumna profile
Share:
Felicity T. C. Hamer
Thesis supervisor: Jeremy Stolow
Thesis title: Developing Memory:Remembrance, Embellishment and Hauntography
Felicity T. C. Hamer is a Montreal-born mother of two, vocalist, Public Scholar and recent PhD graduate from the Department of Communication Studies.
Perplexed by her own emotional response to photographs, she ventured to understand the complex ways in which photographic portraits extend our relationships beyond physical death. Within this context, Hamer examined the therapeutic potential of photography associated with death rituals and of Victorian-era Spirit Photography in particular. Her research focused on memory and imagination through photography; bereavement and photography; emotional engagement with photographs; paranormal, supernatural, magical and miraculous imagery; and intersections of religion and photography.
Her dissertation project, “Developing Memory: Remembrance, Embellishment, Hauntography,” establishes and then develops the existence of a form of bereavement through photography that she names hauntography. Some photographic objects seem to become so enmeshed in the activity of imaginative remembrance that their ability to participate is no longer dependant on the viewable object. Misplaced or intentionally avoided, these mementoes can take on a hauntographic presence – retaining an affective charge that echoes the very phantoms they were meant to commemorate. Hauntographs are skeuomorphs – retaining the now-superfluous attributes of objects that, for a time, hosted the now-disconnected remembrance activity.
Scholarly writing
Book
- Parental Grief and Photographic Remembrance: A Historical Account of Undying Love. Second in the series ‘Sharing Death Online,’ edited by Dorthe Refslund Christensen. Bingley: UK, Emerald Publishing. (February 2020). https://tinyurl.com/3uhcvt73
Peer-reviewed article
- “Mrs. Helen F. Stuart and Hannah F. Green: the original spirit photographer.” History of Photography Journal, vol. 42, no. 2 (September 2018), 146-167. https://doi.org/10.1080/03087298.2018.1498491
Book reviews
- “Keeper of the Hearth / Picturing Roland Barthes’ Unseen Photograph (review).” History of Photography Journal, (Dec. 2020). DOI: 10.1080/03087298.2020.184689
- “Communion of Shadows (review).” Material Religion, vol. 15, no. 3, (March 2019), 384-387. https://doi.org/10.1080/17432200.2019.1572367
Thesis
- “The Role of Women in Victorian-era Spirit Photography: A New Narrative.” MA thesis, submitted to the Art History Department of Concordia University, September 2015. Supervised by Dr. Catherine Mackenzie. https://tinyurl.com/44f2pz3r
Other writing
- “La photographie spirite capte à la fois l'amour, le deuil et la nostalgie.” La Conversation. Dec. 21, 2021. https://theconversation.com/la-photographie-spirite-capte-a-la-fois-lamour-ledeuil-et-la-nostalgie-170702
- “Photographie spirite : un rituel de deuil novateur du XIXᵉ siècle où les femmes ont joué un grand rôle.” La Conversation. October 29, 2021. https://theconversation.com/photographie-spirite-un-rituel-de-deuil-novateur-du-xix-siecle-ou-les-femmes-ont-joue-un-grand-role-169978
- “Spirit photography captured love, loss and longing.” The Conversation. October 26, 2021. https://theconversation.com/spirit-photography-captured-love-loss-and-longing-169239
- “Chasing Ghosts.” Concordia Public Scholar blog post, October 19, 2021. https://www.concordia.ca/cunews/offices/vprgs/sgs/public-scholars-21/2021/10/19/chasing-ghosts.html
- “Spirit photography: 19th-century innovation in bereavement rituals was likely invented by a woman.” The Conversation. September 29, 2021. https://theconversation.com/spirit-photography-19th-century-innovation-in-bereavement-rituals-was-likely-invented-by-a-woman-164033
- “Picturing Them Naked.” Concordia Public Scholar blog post, July 8, 2021. https://www.concordia.ca/cunews/offices/vprgs/sgs/public-scholars-21/2021/07/08/picturing-them-naked.html
- "Opinion: The pandemic may have changed funerals forever.” Montreal Gazette, June 21, 2021. https://montrealgazette.com/opinion/opinion-the-pandemic-may-have-changed-funerals-forever
- “Running from my Dissertation.” Concordia Public Scholar blog post, June 10, 2021. https://www.concordia.ca/cunews/offices/vprgs/sgs/public-scholars-21/2021/06/10/running-from-my-dissertation.html
Social media links:
