– Syllabus
– Access the powerpoint presentations from class (UW NetID required)
– Instructions for creating weekly responses (UW NetID required)
– List of possible midterm project topics (this is also on page 5 of the syllabus)
– List of midterm/presentation topics and dates, as assigned
– Instructions for the midterm project
– Template for the midterm project
– Instructions for the final project
– Access your grades and feedback on the Canvas site (UW NetID required)
Schedule & Readings
- *Note that:
- – A UW NetID is required to access the readings.
- – In order to give you the best selection possible, I’m still curating the reading list. The readings will be available for you at least two weeks in advance. Please check back frequently for updates.
- – For most weeks, you are only required to complete ONE of the readings listed.
Week 1: April 1 & 3 - Introduction to the course, vocabulary, and historical background
Assignments:
*POST YOUR INTRODUCTORY RESPONSE online by the beginning of class on Wednesday (instructions are here)
*GET STARTED on next week’s reading – your response to it is due on Sunday, 4/7!
*POST YOUR INTRODUCTORY RESPONSE online by the beginning of class on Wednesday (instructions are here)
*GET STARTED on next week’s reading – your response to it is due on Sunday, 4/7!
Week 2: April 8 & 10 - Regarding the Pain of Others
Assignments:
*Reading response due by 6pm on Sunday, April 7
*PROJECT TOPIC preferences due in class on Monday, April 8
Reading (ONLY ONE CHOICE THIS WEEK):
– Susan Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others, Chs. 1-4 and 8-9
– Pay attention to the various theses that Sontag puts forward about the nature of photography and its relationship to violence. Notice that she presents limited evidence to support her claims. Think about what kinds of evidence we would need in order to test them.
– The book doesn’t have illustrations, so make sure you Google the images that she mentions, and look at them alongside the text.
*Reading response due by 6pm on Sunday, April 7
*PROJECT TOPIC preferences due in class on Monday, April 8
Reading (ONLY ONE CHOICE THIS WEEK):
– Susan Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others, Chs. 1-4 and 8-9
– Pay attention to the various theses that Sontag puts forward about the nature of photography and its relationship to violence. Notice that she presents limited evidence to support her claims. Think about what kinds of evidence we would need in order to test them.
– The book doesn’t have illustrations, so make sure you Google the images that she mentions, and look at them alongside the text.
Week 3: April 15 & 17 - Theorizing the Violence of the Photograph: Semiotics, Gender and Psychoanalysis
Assignments:
*Reading response due by 6pm on Sunday, April 14
Reading (PICK ONE):
– Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida, excerpts
– This is one of the seminal theoretical texts on photography. Barthes was a French semiotician. These excerpts give you an idea of the terms he introduces in order to understand the function of photography for the viewer, as well as his famous meditation on photography’s relationship to death.
– Roland Barthes, Image/Music/Text, excerpts and Panzani ad (referred to in the second essay)
– In these essays, Barthes analyzes photography using a semiotic approach. Especially important is his commentary on how text (captions) relate to images.
– John Berger, “Appearances”
– Berger addresses many of the same themes as Barthes, but in much more approachable language.. He also adds a Marxist analysis of how photographs relate to history and ideology.
– John Berger, Chs. 3 & 7 from Ways of Seeing
– This is a very well-known text, and the chapters selected address the relationship of images to gender and commercialism. In Chapter 3 he draws heavily on psychoanalytic feminist theories of the male gaze, such as the one put forward by Mulvey. In Chapter 7, Keep in mind that Berger is taking a Marxist approach to capitalism.
– Storey, intro to Lacan & Mulvey and Laura Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”
– Storey nicely sums up the theories of Lacan and relates them to Mulvey — this will be helpful as you read Mulvey’s text. Her essay is a key text in feminist film theory and visual culture studies, and is still the one people think of when the term ‘the male gaze’ is used.
*Reading response due by 6pm on Sunday, April 14
Reading (PICK ONE):
– Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida, excerpts
– This is one of the seminal theoretical texts on photography. Barthes was a French semiotician. These excerpts give you an idea of the terms he introduces in order to understand the function of photography for the viewer, as well as his famous meditation on photography’s relationship to death.
– Roland Barthes, Image/Music/Text, excerpts and Panzani ad (referred to in the second essay)
– In these essays, Barthes analyzes photography using a semiotic approach. Especially important is his commentary on how text (captions) relate to images.
– John Berger, “Appearances”
– Berger addresses many of the same themes as Barthes, but in much more approachable language.. He also adds a Marxist analysis of how photographs relate to history and ideology.
– John Berger, Chs. 3 & 7 from Ways of Seeing
– This is a very well-known text, and the chapters selected address the relationship of images to gender and commercialism. In Chapter 3 he draws heavily on psychoanalytic feminist theories of the male gaze, such as the one put forward by Mulvey. In Chapter 7, Keep in mind that Berger is taking a Marxist approach to capitalism.
– Storey, intro to Lacan & Mulvey and Laura Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”
– Storey nicely sums up the theories of Lacan and relates them to Mulvey — this will be helpful as you read Mulvey’s text. Her essay is a key text in feminist film theory and visual culture studies, and is still the one people think of when the term ‘the male gaze’ is used.
Week 4: April 22 & 24- Theorizing the Violence of the Photograph: Orientalism and Identity
Assignments:
*Reading response due by 6pm on Sunday, April 21
Reading (PICK ONE):
– Emerling, intro to Said and Timothy Mitchell, “Orientalism and the Exhibitionary Order”
– Edward Said’s theory of Orientalism has become the backbone of post-colonial studies. The intro to Said by Emerling will give you a quick overview of this key concept. Then you’ll see how it can be applied to issues of visual culture in Mitchell’s piece. Even though Mitchell doesn’t concentrate specifically on photography, think about how the politics of performance, the pose, framing, and spectatorship might link exhibitions with practices of photography. Also keep in mind that Flaubert (who Mitchell writes about) traveled along with the photographer Maxime Du Camp, whose work we looked at at the beginning of the quarter.
– Stuart Hall, The Spectacle of the Other, excerpts
– Hall is a major figure in British cultural studies, and he comes from a strongly Marxist background. This piece introduces many useful concepts for thinking about how ethnicity intersects with representation. As you read, I challenge you to think about whether his analysis can be applied to other ethnic groups — or whether the representation of Black, particularly British, subjects differs significantly from the ways other minority groups tend to be represented in the media.
– Judith Butler, intro to Frames of War
– Butler is best known for her work on gender, but her piece here has more to do with the status of human beings in general, and our capacity to see one another as human in times of conflict. Pay close attention to the ways that Butler attempts to problematize the often too-easy binaries (self/Other, Western/Oriental) that plague post-colonial studies.
*Reading response due by 6pm on Sunday, April 21
Reading (PICK ONE):
– Emerling, intro to Said and Timothy Mitchell, “Orientalism and the Exhibitionary Order”
– Edward Said’s theory of Orientalism has become the backbone of post-colonial studies. The intro to Said by Emerling will give you a quick overview of this key concept. Then you’ll see how it can be applied to issues of visual culture in Mitchell’s piece. Even though Mitchell doesn’t concentrate specifically on photography, think about how the politics of performance, the pose, framing, and spectatorship might link exhibitions with practices of photography. Also keep in mind that Flaubert (who Mitchell writes about) traveled along with the photographer Maxime Du Camp, whose work we looked at at the beginning of the quarter.
– Stuart Hall, The Spectacle of the Other, excerpts
– Hall is a major figure in British cultural studies, and he comes from a strongly Marxist background. This piece introduces many useful concepts for thinking about how ethnicity intersects with representation. As you read, I challenge you to think about whether his analysis can be applied to other ethnic groups — or whether the representation of Black, particularly British, subjects differs significantly from the ways other minority groups tend to be represented in the media.
– Judith Butler, intro to Frames of War
– Butler is best known for her work on gender, but her piece here has more to do with the status of human beings in general, and our capacity to see one another as human in times of conflict. Pay close attention to the ways that Butler attempts to problematize the often too-easy binaries (self/Other, Western/Oriental) that plague post-colonial studies.
Week 5: April 29 & May 1 - War, Part I
Assignments:
*Reading response due by 6pm on Sunday, April 28
*MIDTERM DUE on Monday, April 29
Reading (PICK ONE):
– Bernd Hueppauf, “Experiences of Modern Warfare and the Crisis of Representation”
Hueppauf’s article is about Ernst Juenger, a right-wing German writer known for his work around the time of the first World War. Though he didn’t become a Nazi, his views have been accused of being fascist. His work represents a particular view of the process of mechanization and visualization in warfare that is unique to our modern era.
– Caroline Brothers, “Casualties and the Nature of Photographic Evidence”
Here, Brothers discusses the history of photographs of war injuries, their contextualization, and their circulation. This chapter should help further our consideration of questions that arose this past week with Butler’s notion of ‘grievable life.’
– Michael Griffin, “Media Images of War”
This media analysis of images of the Vietnam war gives us a deeper look into the overall war coverage. Griffin argues that the pictorial portrayal of the war was actually more partisan than we now tend to think.
*Reading response due by 6pm on Sunday, April 28
*MIDTERM DUE on Monday, April 29
Reading (PICK ONE):
– Bernd Hueppauf, “Experiences of Modern Warfare and the Crisis of Representation”
Hueppauf’s article is about Ernst Juenger, a right-wing German writer known for his work around the time of the first World War. Though he didn’t become a Nazi, his views have been accused of being fascist. His work represents a particular view of the process of mechanization and visualization in warfare that is unique to our modern era.
– Caroline Brothers, “Casualties and the Nature of Photographic Evidence”
Here, Brothers discusses the history of photographs of war injuries, their contextualization, and their circulation. This chapter should help further our consideration of questions that arose this past week with Butler’s notion of ‘grievable life.’
– Michael Griffin, “Media Images of War”
This media analysis of images of the Vietnam war gives us a deeper look into the overall war coverage. Griffin argues that the pictorial portrayal of the war was actually more partisan than we now tend to think.
Week 6: May 6 & 8 - War, Part II
Assignments:
*Reading response due by 6pm on Sunday, May 5
Reading (REQUIRED):
– “The Shot That Nearly Killed Me” in the June 2011 Guardian
Reading (PICK ONE):
– Michael Griffin, “Media Images of War” – if you didn’t read it last week, I HIGHLY recommend it!
– Caroline Brothers, “Vietnam, the Falklands, the Gulf: Photography in the Age of the Simulacral”
Brothers goes over similar material to Griffin (whose article I’d recommend over this one, if you haven’t read Griffin yet). She refers to the notion of the ‘hyperreal,’ a concept espoused by Baudrillard in the essay below. You might consider if you agree with her thesis that war coverage in the digital age – and our reception of it – has truly moved into the realm of the hyperreal, and what that might mean, if it has.
– Jean Baudrillard, “The Precession of Simulacra” and Sontag, Ch. 7 of Regarding
This excerpt from Baudrillard’s seminal essay introduces the notion of the ‘hyperreal’ and the ‘simulacrum.’ It’s important to keep in mind that Baudrillard is not saying that we can ever re-enter the realm of the ‘real’ (as Morpheus helps Neo do in The Matrix) – rather, the hyperreal is our ‘real.’ Notice also that this is the origin of the famous ‘desert of the real’ that appears in Zizek’s essay below, and in the famous scene from The Matrix. The chapter by Sontag connects to this notion, as well.
– Storey on Zizek, and Slavoj Zizek, “Welcome to the Desert of the Real”
Zizek is a very well-known media and film theorist who also comments on politics. His method combines psychoanalytic and Marxist ideas. This essay was written directly following 9/11. Pay attention to how he theorizes the media in relation to politics.
*Reading response due by 6pm on Sunday, May 5
Reading (REQUIRED):
– “The Shot That Nearly Killed Me” in the June 2011 Guardian
Reading (PICK ONE):
– Michael Griffin, “Media Images of War” – if you didn’t read it last week, I HIGHLY recommend it!
– Caroline Brothers, “Vietnam, the Falklands, the Gulf: Photography in the Age of the Simulacral”
Brothers goes over similar material to Griffin (whose article I’d recommend over this one, if you haven’t read Griffin yet). She refers to the notion of the ‘hyperreal,’ a concept espoused by Baudrillard in the essay below. You might consider if you agree with her thesis that war coverage in the digital age – and our reception of it – has truly moved into the realm of the hyperreal, and what that might mean, if it has.
– Jean Baudrillard, “The Precession of Simulacra” and Sontag, Ch. 7 of Regarding
This excerpt from Baudrillard’s seminal essay introduces the notion of the ‘hyperreal’ and the ‘simulacrum.’ It’s important to keep in mind that Baudrillard is not saying that we can ever re-enter the realm of the ‘real’ (as Morpheus helps Neo do in The Matrix) – rather, the hyperreal is our ‘real.’ Notice also that this is the origin of the famous ‘desert of the real’ that appears in Zizek’s essay below, and in the famous scene from The Matrix. The chapter by Sontag connects to this notion, as well.
– Storey on Zizek, and Slavoj Zizek, “Welcome to the Desert of the Real”
Zizek is a very well-known media and film theorist who also comments on politics. His method combines psychoanalytic and Marxist ideas. This essay was written directly following 9/11. Pay attention to how he theorizes the media in relation to politics.
Week 7: May 13 & 15 - Photography, Victimhood and Social Change
Assignments:
*Reading response due by midnight on Sunday, May 12
Reading (pick ONE) – note that both readings are actually similar in length, even though the page counts are different – this is due to the illustrations and the way the text is distributed on the page.
– Martha Rosler, “In, around and afterthoughts (on documentary photography)”
This essay is one of the most important pieces of writing on the subject of documentary photography. Like many of our readings this quarter, it was written in the 1970s. Rosler produced it both as a stand-alone critique, and as a kind of artist statement, explaining her own approach to photography.
– Susie Linfield, excerpt from The Cruel Radiance
Linfield’s much more recent writing presents social documentary in light of the history of human rights discourse. She doesn’t exactly provide a counterpointto Rosler, so much as she introduces a completely different way of looking at documentary photos. Pay special attention tot he focus she puts on the reception of these photos of suffering.
*Reading response due by midnight on Sunday, May 12
Reading (pick ONE) – note that both readings are actually similar in length, even though the page counts are different – this is due to the illustrations and the way the text is distributed on the page.
– Martha Rosler, “In, around and afterthoughts (on documentary photography)”
This essay is one of the most important pieces of writing on the subject of documentary photography. Like many of our readings this quarter, it was written in the 1970s. Rosler produced it both as a stand-alone critique, and as a kind of artist statement, explaining her own approach to photography.
– Susie Linfield, excerpt from The Cruel Radiance
Linfield’s much more recent writing presents social documentary in light of the history of human rights discourse. She doesn’t exactly provide a counterpointto Rosler, so much as she introduces a completely different way of looking at documentary photos. Pay special attention tot he focus she puts on the reception of these photos of suffering.
Week 8: May 20 & 22 - Investigating Others and Otherness
Assignments:
*Reading response due by midnight on Sunday, May 19
Reading (PICK ONE):
– John Tagg, The Burden of Representation, excerpts
Tagg’s chapters from this book are some of the best-known writings on the ways that photography has been used in the service of the disciplinary mechanisms of the state. His examples are mostly from the 19th century, so it would be useful to consider whether photography is still utilized this way today.
– Elizabeth Edwards, Anthropology and Photography, introduction
Edwards is a prolific writer on the topic of anthropological photography, especially its use in museums. Like Tagg, she uses examples from the 19th and early 20th century here, but it’s important to consider how, though they may seem distant, these traditions may still be with us today.
– Dora Apel, “The Public Display of Torture Photos,” and Maria Pia di Bella, “Observing Executions: from Spectator to Witness”
Execution and torture are topics that have come up already in our study of war, but it’s also useful to consider how photography functions to discursively support (or undermine) public bodily punishment.
*Reading response due by midnight on Sunday, May 19
Reading (PICK ONE):
– John Tagg, The Burden of Representation, excerpts
Tagg’s chapters from this book are some of the best-known writings on the ways that photography has been used in the service of the disciplinary mechanisms of the state. His examples are mostly from the 19th century, so it would be useful to consider whether photography is still utilized this way today.
– Elizabeth Edwards, Anthropology and Photography, introduction
Edwards is a prolific writer on the topic of anthropological photography, especially its use in museums. Like Tagg, she uses examples from the 19th and early 20th century here, but it’s important to consider how, though they may seem distant, these traditions may still be with us today.
– Dora Apel, “The Public Display of Torture Photos,” and Maria Pia di Bella, “Observing Executions: from Spectator to Witness”
Execution and torture are topics that have come up already in our study of war, but it’s also useful to consider how photography functions to discursively support (or undermine) public bodily punishment.
Week 9: Wednesday, May 29 - Memory
(NO CLASS ON MONDAY – MEMORIAL DAY)
Assignments:
*Reading response due by midnight on Tuesday, May 28
Reading (PICK ONE):
– Marianne Hirsch, “Surviving Images: Holocaust Photographs and the Work of Postmemory”
Hirsch has a very personal connection to the Holocaust, and it’s fascinating to consider how private memory and public or collective memory can intersect.
– Ulrich Baer, “To Give Memory a Place”
Baer’s meditation on the function of photography, memorialization, and place is a somewhat theoretical but very moving piece. I highly recommend it if you’re interested in issues of space and place.
– Allen Feldman, “Ethnographic States of Emergency”
Prof. Feldman was my Master’s adviser. He’s an anthropologist who works on media representations of violence. His work is, like Baer’s, somewhat theoretical, but it is based directly on ethnographic research. He brings together many of the themes we’ve already discussed this quarter.
Assignments:
*Reading response due by midnight on Tuesday, May 28
Reading (PICK ONE):
– Marianne Hirsch, “Surviving Images: Holocaust Photographs and the Work of Postmemory”
Hirsch has a very personal connection to the Holocaust, and it’s fascinating to consider how private memory and public or collective memory can intersect.
– Ulrich Baer, “To Give Memory a Place”
Baer’s meditation on the function of photography, memorialization, and place is a somewhat theoretical but very moving piece. I highly recommend it if you’re interested in issues of space and place.
– Allen Feldman, “Ethnographic States of Emergency”
Prof. Feldman was my Master’s adviser. He’s an anthropologist who works on media representations of violence. His work is, like Baer’s, somewhat theoretical, but it is based directly on ethnographic research. He brings together many of the themes we’ve already discussed this quarter.
Week 10: June 3 & 5 - Memory, continued
Wrap-Up discussions and conferences on final projects
Final projects due Monday, June 10 via online submission