In Memoriam: David Jaffee

Sadly, SHEAR lost our good friend, scholar, and teacher David Jaffee on January 20, 2017, after a valiant struggle with pancreatic cancer.  A native New Yorker, David received his B.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard University. Trained in colonial American history, David soon became interested in American material and visual culture and reinvented himself as a scholar who focused on how objects and images could speak to history. He was Professor and Director of New Media Studies from 2007 to the present at the Bard Graduate Center; from 1987 to 2008, he taught at City College of New York.  The author of People of the Wachusett (1999) and A New Nation of Goods (2010), he was a prolific essayist and workshop instructor who introduced many students to the study of non-literary documents. He is survived by his daughter Isadora Jaffee, his beloved Schneider cousins, and by legions of friends and students inspired by his kindness and generosity. Memorial gifts may be made to the David Jaffee Fellowship in Visual and Material Culture at the American Antiquarian Society, 185 Salisbury St., Worcester, MA 01609 (http://www.americanantiquarian.org/jaffee-fellowship).

A memorial session will be held Sunday, March 26, 2017, 10:30-1:30 at the Bard Graduate Center, 38 West 86th Street (between Columbus and Central Park West) New York, NY; His exhibit on the Crystal Palace will be on view at the Center.