Steven Weiss Samols

Professional Background

Steven Samols is a PhD candidate in the Department of History at the University of Southern California. His research explores the connections between European history, Jewish studies, and visual cultures across the twentieth century. His work focuses on vernacular media forms such as photobooks, analyzing how they shaped understandings of Jewish history for both Jews and wider publics. More broadly, his research engages with how historically marginalized groups gain recognition by shaping mainstream visual cultures. Samols holds an MSc in European studies from the London School of Economics (2016) and a BA in history from New York University (2012). He has received grants and fellowships from the Association for Jewish Studies, the Leo Baeck Institute, the Israeli Council for Higher Education, the Botstiber Institute for Austrian-American Studies, and the German Historical Institute.

Fellowship Research

Mr. Samols was awarded a Sosland Foundation Fellowship in support of his dissertation “Capturing Difference, Making History: The Photobook as a Jewish Artifact,” which examines the transatlantic networks that led to the publication of five photographic books from just before the First World War to the 1970s. It details how the photobook emerged in Central Europe from a combination of Jewish-inflected media (the feuilleton and street photography) and evolved into a mass medium that popularized Jewish history for wide readerships across the Atlantic. While in-residence, Samols will be working on two chapters in particular. The first concerns a survivor-authored photobook from the immediate postwar period, which showed a comprehensive picture of Nazi persecution. The second relates to Jewish refugees and displaced persons (DPs) and their efforts to emigrate from Europe to Palestine after the war.

Residency Period: October 1, 2022–January 31, 2023