An Interview with Jason Francisco, Part 3: Płaszów, A Camp in Its Afterlives

  Jason Francisco’s photography spans a variety of subjects and themes, but some of his ongoing projects take on the complexities of memory and loss in Eastern Europe, particularly memory and loss related to the Holocaust. Francisco recently sat down for an interview with Matthew H. Brittingham, an Emory PhD candidate and associate editor at Sacred Matters. The two discussed Francisco’s photographs on a former Nazi-controlled WWII camp in Krakow, Poland, known as Płaszów. This is part three of a three part interview with Professor Francisco. See: Part one and part two. Professor Francisco’s photography and writing can be seen at his website. For […]

An Interview with Jason Francisco, Part 1: Photographing the “Sacred” in “Alive and Destroyed”

  Jason Francisco received his MFA in Photography from Stanford University in 1998 and is presently an Associate Professor of Film and Media Studies at Emory University. Professor Francisco’s photography spans a variety of subjects and themes, but several of his ongoing projects examine the complexities of memory and loss in Eastern Europe, particularly memory and loss related to the destruction of Eastern European Jewry as part of the Holocaust. Some of Jason Francisco’s projects have been running for almost a decade, if not longer, continuously being updated, reimagined, and re-theorized when he revisits Eastern Europe. Francisco wrestles with loss […]

Why Susan Sontag Matters

By Louis A. Ruprecht Jr. For anyone who is interested in religion and the arts, Susan Sontag’s (1933-2004) work remains essential. She burst upon the New York arts scene in 1966 with the publication of her collection of essays, Against Interpretation. The book was a tour de force examination of everything from second rate horror films to Critical Theory. Her primary interests were the performative arts, photography and film.