Photographs about America 4219-SD043
This course is by no means a survey of the history of American photography. Rather, it examines the various ways in which photographs reflect American values and attitudes, as well as some of the major shifts in American consciousness. This course considers anthropological photographs and popular images of Native Americans as well as the tradition of the landscape photography of the American West , in order to show how these images dramatize changing attitudes among American intellectuals toward the myth of Manifest Destiny and American exceptionalism. The syllabus also includes an examination of selected photographs of the Civil War as images that complicate, and at times undermine the ideological discourse of the Union; as well as a discussion of the role of photography in the Civil RightsMovement. We will also consider how, in the era of liberal consensus of 1950s, American photojournalism, after its heyday in 1930s, became increasingly abstract and private, but later recovered its urgency and validity during the civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam war. Finally, we will read recent scholarship on the photographs of nuclear explosions and the rise of the so-called "spectator democracy," as well as on the photography of feminism.
The sessions are planned to cover the following topics
Session 1
Presentation of the course
Session 2
Photographing the American West: “Ultima Thule: American Myth, Frontier, and the Artist-Priest in Early American Photography” by Janet E. Buerger
Session 3
Photographing Native Americans: “Pictorialist Elements in Edward S. Curtis’s Photographic Representation of American Indians” by Mick Gidley
Session 4
Photographing the civil rights movement: selections from Leigh Raiford, Imprisoned in a Luminous Glare: Photography and the African American Freedom Struggle.
Session 5
Photographs of Lynchings: “The Spectator Has a Picture in His Mind to Remember for a Long Time,” Lynching and Spectacle: Witnessing Racial Violence in America, 1890-1940 by Amy Louise Wood
Session 6
Civil War Photographs: “Albums of War” from Reading American Photographs: Image as History by Alan Trachtenberg
Session 7
PBS American Photography I and II
Session 8
Social Documentary Photography: “From Sensation to Science: Documentary Photography at the Turn of the Century” by Maren Stange
Session 9
The Rise of Abstract Photography in the Era of Consensus: Lili Corbus Berner, “Coming in from the Cold: Sid Grossman’s Life in the League”
Session 10
Photographs of the Cold War
Session 11
Photographing the American Dream: “The Great American Wasteland” by James Guimond
Session 12
Nuclear Photography: “Watching the Bombs Go Off” by Scott Kirsch
Session 13
“How to Face the Gaze” by Kaja Silverman from Cindy Sherman (October Files) ed. Johanna Burton
Session 14
PBS American Photography III
Session 15
Wrap-up session, discussion of the papers
Course coordinators
Type of course
Prerequisites (description)
Learning outcomes
A student who has completes the course will
Knowledge
- have basic knowledge about the development of American photography and its main representatives
- have in-depth knowledge how american values and idelogy have been reflected in artistic, journalistic and scientific photography
- have deeper knowledge of the intellectual history of the US
Skills
- know how to use research terms and paradigms to identify new research questions
- know how to describe and distinguish between various trends in American photography
Social competences
- recognize the importance of critical reflection on the cultural work of images and their role in shaping public discourse, collective memory, and democratic society;
- demonstrate awareness of the significance of photographic images in promoting, contesting, and transforming social, political, and cultural values;
- cooperate with others in the interpretation and discussion of visual materials, showing respect for diverse perspectives and sensitivity to the historical, cultural, and ethical contexts of representation.
Assessment criteria
COURSE REQUIREMENTS
1. Active participation in class
2. Three response papers
3. Presentation: By the end of the semester, each student will be required to prepare a presentation on a topic of their choice, incorporating both research and interpretation.
GRADING: 25% participation; 50% response papers; 25% presentation
Grading scale:
0–50% 2 fail
51–60% 3 satisfactory / pass
61–70% 3+ satisfactory plus
71–80% 4 good
81–90% 4+ good plus
91–96% 5 very good
97–100% 5! excellent / outstanding
Bibliography
1. Janet E. Buerger, “Ultima Thule: American Myth, Frontier, and the Artist-Priest in Early American Photography.” American Art 6.1 (1992): 82-103.
2. Mick Gidley “Pictorialist Elements in Edward S. Curtis’s Photographic Representation of American Indians.” Yearbook of English Studies 24, Ethnicity and Representation in American Literature (1992): 180-192.
3. “The Spectator Has a Picture in His Mind to Remember for a Long Time,” Lynching and Spectacle: Witnessing Racial Violence in America, 1890-1940 by Amy Louise Wood
4. Leigh Raiford, Imprisoned in a Luminous Glare: Photography and the African American Freedom Struggle.
5. Alan Trachtenberg, “Albums of War” from Reading American Photographs: Image as History, Mathew Brady to Walker Evans. New York: Hill & Wang, 1989, pp. 71-118.
6. Maren Stange, “From Sensation to Science: Documentary Photography at the Turn of the Century” Symbols of Ideal Life: Social Documentary Photography in America, 1890-1950, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989, pp. 1-46
7. Lili Corbus Berner, Chapter 2: “Coming in from the Cold: Sid Grossman’s Life in the League” Photography & Politics in America: From the New Deal into the Cold War, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1999, pp. 73-120
8. James Guimond, Chapter 6: “The Great American Wasteland” from American Photography and the American Dream, Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 1991, pp. 207-244.
9. Scott Kirsch, “Watching the Bombs Go Off”: Photography, Nuclear Landscapes, and Spectator Democracy. Antipode 29.3 (1997): 227-225.
10. “How to Face the Gaze” by Kaja Silverman from Cindy Sherman (October Files) ed. Johanna Burton