Thomas S. Rankin

Professor of the Practice of Art, Art History & Visual Studies

Education

M.F.A., Georgia State University 1987
M.A., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 1983
B.A., Tufts University 1980

Overview

A photographer, filmmaker, and folklorist, Tom Rankin has been documenting and interpreting American culture for nearly twenty years. His books include Sacred Space: Photographs from the Mississippi Delta (1993), which received the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Award for Photography, 'Deaf Maggie Lee Sayre': Photographs of a River Life(1995), Faulkner's World: The Photographs of Martin J. Dain (1997), and Local Heroes Changing America: Indivisible (2000).

Expertise

Photography, filmmaking, folklore

Contact Information

1317 W Pettigrew St, Durham, NC 27705

Box 90802, Durham, NC 27708-0802

(919) 660-3613

tsr2@duke.edu

Links

http://cds.aas.duke.edu/

Projects

Beyond Beauty: The Archive...

Beyond Beauty: Photographs from the Duke University Special Collections Library featured more than 80 original photographs, films, personal artifacts and rare... read more »

Reality Radio: Telling True...

Over the last few decades, the radio documentary has developed into a strikingly vibrant form of creative expression. Millions of listeners hear arresting, intimate... read more »

One Place: Paul Kwilecki...

Though artistic and ambitious, Paul Kwilecki (1928-2009) chose to remain in Bainbridge, Georgia, the small Decatur County town where he was born, raised, and ran the family's... read more »

Rankin, Tom. A Place of Tender Images: Paul Kwilecki’s Four Decades of Photography of Decatur County, GA. 2012.

Rankin, Tom. Truths of the Matter: Traditions in Documentary Studies. 2012.

Jackson, B., and D. Christian. In This Timeless Time. Edited by I. T. Hill and T. S. Rankin, University of North Carolina Press, 2011.

Rankin, T. S. Reality Radio: Telling True Stories in Sound. Edited by Tom Rankin et al., 2010.

Rankin, Tom. Beyond Beauty: The Archive of Documentary Arts at Duke University. The Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library, 2009.

Rankin, Tom. “Judgment and Grace in Dixie.” Judgment and Grace in Dixie, edited by Charles Reagan Wilson, The University of Georgia Press, 2007.

Rankin, Tom. “Careful Tending.” Last Harvest: Truck Farmers in the Deep South, edited by P. Dilbeck, University of Georgia Press, 2006.

Rankin, Tom. “Home and Away at 25.” 25 Under 25: Up-and-Coming American Phogtographers, Powerhouse Books, 2003.

Rankin, Tom. “The Cruel Radiance of the Obvious.” Southern Cultures, 2011.

Rankin, Tom. Maasai Community of Lakipia. Sept. 2009.

Rankin, Tom. “Mike Seeger Remembered.” Porch Gallery, 2009.

Rankin, Tom. “Paul Kwilecki Remembered.” Porch Gallery, 2009.

Rankin, Tom. “Visualizing the World of William Faulkner.” American Studies International, Oct. 1998, edited by Peter J. Brownlee, vol. XXXVI, University of Press of Mississippi, 2007.

Rankin, T. “Seeing What We Need To See.” The Light Factory, 2007.

Rankin, T. “Share a Table, Make a Friend.” Appalachian Heritage, 2007.

Rankin, T. “The Injuries of Time and Weather.” Southern Cultures, vol. 13.2, 2007, pp. 3–28.

Rankin, T. “Putting a Bottom Under It.” Oxford American, no. 49, 2005.

Rankin, T. “In Wildness (photo essay).” Daylight Magazine, vol. 1, 2004.