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Faculty & Staff

Areas of Expertise

Visual Culture Studies, particularly the history of photography, cartooning, and early cinema (late 19th and early 20th centuries); American Food Culture Studies; Cultural Analysis of Radio Broadcasting, 1930s-1950s; American Imperialism, the Spanish-American and Philippine-American Wars; History of American Journalism/Print Culture

Degrees

PhD, History, Johns Hopkins University

Professional Publications & Contributions

• From Liberation to Conquest: The Visual and Popular Cultures of the Spanish-American War (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2011).
• “‘Remember the Alamo’ to ‘Remember the Maine’: The Visual Ideologies of the Mexican and Spanish-American Wars,” In The Martial Imagination: Essays on the Cultural History of American Warfare, ed. Jimmy L. Bryan, Jr. (forthcoming 2013, Texas A&M Press)
• “The Image-makers’ Arsenal in an Age of War and Empire, 1898-99: A Cartoon Essay, Featuring the Work of Charles Bartholomew (of the Minneapolis Journal) and Albert Wilbur Steele (of the Denver Post)” The Journal of American Studies 45.1 (2011): 53-75.
• “The Incoherencies of Empire: The ‘Imperial’ Image of the Indian at the Omaha World’s Fairs of 1898-99,” American Studies 49 (Fall/Winter 2008): 5-28.

Additional Information

Research Interests:

Professor Miller's research centers on the role of visual and other popular media forms in shaping the politics of gender, race, and empire during the late nineteenth century. 

Her book, From Liberation to Conquest: The Visual and Popular Cultures of the Spanish-American War of 1898, argues for the importance of visual images in shaping the political debates surrounding the Cuban crisis and the imperial aftermath of the Spanish-American War of 1898.  It emphasizes the imperatives and methodological challenges of using visual analysis in the study of American culture, politics, and imperialism.

Her interests further include the history of world’s fairs, cartooning, photography, slavery, Native Americans, colonization, old time radio, and print culture.

Courses Taught:

Bonnie Miller teaches courses in visual culture/media studies and American social and cultural history from 1600 to present.  Among her courses are the following:

AMST 100  American Identities
AMST 210  American Society and Culture, 1600-1860
AMST 250  US Travel and Tourism
AMST/ART 402L  American Visual Cultures
AMST/HIST 602L Historical Sequence I: American Society and Political Culture, 1600-1865