Laurie Blanton Pierce

Laurie Blanton Pierce is an art historian specializing in photography, serving as Assistant Professor of Art History at the George Washington University. She has edited and contributed to books including *Photography and Failure: One Medium’s Incessant Entanglement with Mishaps, Flops, and Disappointments* (Bloomsbury Academic Press, 2017) and *‘These Are Our Stories’: Diverse Histories, Narratives, and Identities in Photographic Albums* (Routledge, 2022). Her career includes curatorial and research positions at institutions such as the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe, New Mexico; she grew up in rural Pennsylvania, earned her BA from the University of Maryland, and obtained an MA in anthropology from the University of New Mexico.