everything.study
21A.348

Photography and Truth

Undergraduate · Historical course

Spring 2008

Still photography, a practice and form of expression that has worked its way into every facet of social life and every culture in the world, is considered here from the perspectives of history and social science. We will discuss the uses and functions of pictures; how they are to be understood and interpreted; whether they have clear-cut content and meanings; how they shape and are shaped by politics, economics, and social life.

Readings

  • WEEK #: 2 · TOPICS: The power and ambiguity of photography · READINGS: Edwards, Short Introduction , chapters 1-5.
    Reading assignment
  • Edwards, Short Introduction , review chapters 1-2.
    Listed reading
  • Hamilton & Hargreaves, The Beautiful and the Damned , all.
    Listed reading
  • Wells, Physiognomy , pp. 162-165, 168-171, 192-195, 344-345, 360-361, and 382-383.
    Listed reading
  • Banks, Visual Methods , pp. 34-47.
    Listed reading
  • Edwards, Short Introduction , chapter 6.
    Listed reading
  • Batchen, Geoffrey. “Vernacular Photographies.” History of Photography 24 (Autumn 2000): 262-269.
    Listed reading
  • Katriel, Tamar, and Thomas Farrell. “Scrapbooks as Cultural Texts: An American Art of Memory.” Text and Performance Quarterly 11 (January 1991): 1-17.
    Listed reading
  • Frizot, New History , chapter 41, “Rituals and Customs.”
    Listed reading
  • Jacobbi, Marianne. “ Deleting Him .” The Boston Globe , January 13, 2008, p. 38. ↗
    Listed reading
  • Parker & Neal, Los Ambulantes , pp. 1-22. (skim)
    Listed reading
  • Simmonds, Posy. “Every Picture Tells a Story.” p. 212 in Lenman, Oxford Companion .
    Listed reading
  • Gladwell, Malcolm. “ The Picture Problem .” The New Yorker , December 13, 2004, pp. 74-81. ↗
    Listed reading
  • Chéroux, The Perfect Medium , pp. 20-23 and 29-34 (read); pp. 73-78 and 92-94 (skim).
    Listed reading
  • Harvey, Photography and Spirit , pp. 56-69, 70-75, and 80-86.
    Listed reading
  • King, The Commissar Vanishes , pp. 9-13 and 32.
    Listed reading
  • Brower, Kenneth. “ Photography in the Age of Falsification .” The Atlantic (May 1998): 92-111. ↗
    Listed reading
  • WEEK #: 6 · TOPICS: Advertising photography and gender · READINGS: Goffman, Gender Advertisements , all.
    Reading assignment
  • Guimond, American Photography and the American Dream , chapter 4.
    Listed reading
  • Wright, 12 Million Black Voices, all.
    Listed reading
  • Levine, “The Historian and the Icon,” and Trachtenberg, “From Image to Story.” In Documenting America , pp. 15-71. (optional)
    Listed reading
  • Faris, “A Political Primer on Photography/Anthropology,” (read) and Street, “British Popular Anthropology,” (skim). In Edwards, Anthropology and Photography .
    Listed reading
  • Lutz, Catherine, and Jane Collins. “The Photograph as an Intersection of Gazes: the Example of National Geographic.” Visual Anthropology Review 7 (1991): 143-149.
    Listed reading
  • Poole, Deborah. “An Excess of Description: Ethnography, Race, and Visual Technologies.” Annual Review of Anthropology 34 (2005): 159-179.
    Listed reading
  • Frizot, New History , chapter 30, “The Way Life Goes,” and chapter 33, “The Involvement of the Photojournalist.”
    Listed reading
  • Dunaway, “Nature on the Coffee Table,” (required) and “Thoreau with a Camera,” (optional). In Natural Visions .
    Listed reading
  • Levi-Strauss, “The Documentary Debate,” and “Photography and Propaganda.” In Between the Eyes.
    Listed reading
  • Collier, Visual Anthropology , pp. 19-28, 44-63, and 77-97.
    Listed reading
  • Pink, Doing Visual Ethnography , chapter 3.
    Listed reading
  • Banks, Visual Methods , chapter 5.
    Listed reading
  • Bateson & Mead, Balinese Character , pp. xi-xvi, 1, 6-8, 13-23, 64-65, 78-79, 86-87, 96-97, 100-101, 104-105, and 120-121.
    Listed reading
  • Morath, “Pamplona Bullfight,” and Smith, “A Country Doctor.” In Boot, Magnum Stories .
    Listed reading
  • “Spanish Village.” pp. 72-81 in Time - Photojournalism .
    Listed reading
  • Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” and Manovich, “The Paradoxes of Digital Photography.” In Wells, The Photography Reader.
    Listed reading
  • Sontag, “In Plato’s Cave.” In On Photography .
    Listed reading
  • Collins, Lauren. “ Pixel Perfect .” The New Yorker , May 12, 2008. ↗
    Listed reading
  • WEEK #: 12 · TOPICS: War and suffering in the picture · READINGS: Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others , all.
    Reading assignment
  • Amir, Michlean J. “From Memorial Books to Invaluable Historical Documentation.” In Wolfson, Laurel, and Barbara Leff. Proceedings of the 36th Annual Convention of the Association of Jewish Libraries. La Jolla, CA: AJL, 2001. ( PDF ) ↗
    Listed reading
  • Banks, Marcus. Visual Methods in Social Research . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2001. ISBN: 9780761963646.
    Listed reading
  • Bateson, Gregory, and Margaret Mead. Balinese Character . New York, NY: New York Academy of Sciences, 1942.
    Listed reading
  • Boot, Chris. Magnum Stories . New York, NY: Phaidon, 2004. ISBN: 9780714842455.
    Listed reading
  • Chéroux, Clement, et al. The Perfect Medium . New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005. ISBN: 9780300111361.
    Listed reading
  • Collier, John, Jr., and Malcolm Collier. Visual Anthropology . Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico, 1986. ISBN: 9780826308993.
    Listed reading
  • Dunaway, Finis. Natural Visions: The Power of Images in American Environmental Reform . Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2008. ISBN: 9780226173269.
    Listed reading
  • Edwards, Elizabeth. Anthropology and Photography, 1860-1920 . New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994. ISBN: 9780300059441.
    Listed reading
  • Edwards, Steve. Photography: A Very Short Introduction . New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2006. ISBN: 9780192801647.
    Listed reading
  • Ferrato, Donna. “Living with the Enemy: Domestic Violence.” In Light, Ken. Witness in Our Time: Working Lives of Documentary Photographers. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2000. ISBN: 9781560989486.
    Listed reading
  • Fleischhauer, Carl, and Beverly Brannan. Documenting America . Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1988. ISBN: 9780520062214.
    Listed reading
  • Frizot, Michel. A New History of Photography . Köln, Germany: Könemann, 1998. ISBN: 9783829013284.
    Listed reading
  • Goffman, Erving. Gender Advertisements . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979. ISBN: 9780674341913.
    Listed reading
  • Goldberg, Vicki. “Documenting Poverty.” In Light Matters: Writings on Photography . New York, NY: Aperture, 2005. ISBN: 9781931788632.
    Listed reading
  • Guimond, James. American Photography and the American Dream . Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1991. ISBN: 9780807843086.
    Listed reading
  • Hamilton, Peter, and Roger Hargreaves. The Beautiful and the Damned: The Creation of Identity in Nineteenth-Century Photography . Burlington, VT: Lund Humphries, 2001. ISBN: 9780853318217.
    Listed reading
  • Harvey, John. Photography and Spirit . London, England: Reaktion Press, 2007. ISBN: 9781861893246.
    Listed reading
  • Kemp, Martin. “‘A Perfect and Faithful Record’: Mind and Body in Medical Photography Before 1900.” Chapter 5 in Thomas, Ann. Beauty of Another Order: Photography in Science . New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1997. ISBN: 9780300073409.
    Listed reading
  • King, David. The Commissar Vanishes: The Falsification of Photographs and Art in Stalin’s Russia . New York, NY: Metropolitan Books, 1997. ISBN: 9780805052947.
    Listed reading
  • Kristof, Nicholas D. “ Save the Darfur Puppy .” New York Times , May 10, 2007. ↗
    Listed reading
  • Kuhn, Annette. “Remembrance.” In Illuminations: Women Writing on Photography from the 1850s to the Present . Edited by Liz Heron and Val Williams. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1996. ISBN: 9780822317845.
    Listed reading
  • Lange, Dorothea, and Paul Taylor. An American Exodus: A Record of Human Erosion . New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1969.
    Listed reading
  • Lenman, Robin. The Oxford Companion to the Photograph . New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2005. ISBN: 9780198662716.
    Listed reading
  • Levi-Strauss, David. “The Documentary Debate,” and “Photography and Propaganda.” In Between the Eyes: Essays on Photography . New York, NY: Aperture, 2005. ISBN: 9781931788106.
    Listed reading
  • Malcolm, Janet. “Certainties and Possibilities.” In Diana & Nikon: Essays on Photography . New York, NY: Aperture, 1997. ISBN: 9780893817275.
    Listed reading
  • Marien, Mary Warner. Photography: A Cultural History . Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2006. ISBN: 9780132219068.
    Listed reading
  • Mitchell, Timothy. “Orientalism and the Exhibitionary Order.” In Colonialism and Culture . Edited by Nicholas Dirks. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1992. ISBN: 9780472094349.
    Listed reading
  • Parker, Ann, and Avon Neal. Los Ambulantes: Itinerant Photographers of Guatemala . Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1984. ISBN: 9780262660532. ↗
    Listed reading
  • Pink, Sarah. Doing Visual Ethnography . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2001. ISBN: 9780761960546.
    Listed reading
  • Severson, Kim. “ Upton Sinclair, Now Playing on YouTube .” New York Times , March 12, 2008. ↗
    Listed reading
  • Sontag, Susan. “In Plato’s Cave.” In On Photography . New York, NY: Picador, 2001. ISBN: 9780312420093.
    Listed reading
  • ———. Regarding the Pain of Others . New York, NY: Picador, 2004. ISBN: 9780312422196.
    Listed reading
  • Sprague, Stephen. “Yoruba Photography: How the Yoruba See Themselves.” In Pinney, Christopher, and Nicolas Peterson. Photography’s Other Histories . Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003. ISBN: 9780822331261.
    Listed reading
  • Time Life Library of Photography - Photojournalism . New York, NY: Time-Life Books, 1971.
    Listed reading
  • Timmons, Heather, and J. Adam Huggins. “ New York Manhole Covers, Forged Barefoot in India .” New York Times , November 26, 2007. ↗
    Listed reading
  • Trachtenberg, Alan. “Illustrious Americans.” Chapter 1 in Reading American Photographs . New York, NY: Hill and Wang, 1990. ISBN: 9780374522490.
    Listed reading
  • Wells, Liz. The Photography Reader . New York, NY: Routledge, 2002. ISBN: 9780415246613.
    Listed reading
  • Wells, Samuel. New Physiognomy or Signs of Character as Manifested through Temperament . Whitefish, MT: Kessinger, LLC, 2007. ISBN: 9780548001523.
    Listed reading
  • Wright, Richard. 12 Million Black Voices . New York, NY: Basic Books, 2002. ISBN: 9781560254461.
    Listed reading
Sources