Thematic Option: Core 101 Kate Flint WRITING AND PHOTOGRAPHY Fall 2013 M, W 12-1.

40 MHP 106 Discussion sections (with Christopher McGeorge) F 11, 12 THH 217 Kate Flint kflint@usc.edu Office hours: Monday 10.30-11.30; Wednesday 2-3 VKC 351 Christopher McGeorge mcgeorgc@gmail.com Office hours: Friday 9-11, VKC 368

Photographs are everywhere in daily life. This course invites us to look critically at writing about photography, and to ask what might be the distinctive characteristics of the photographic medium that have caused people to write about it in particular ways. To this end, we will look at some classic writings about photography by such critics as Walter Benjamin, Roland Barthes, and Susan Sontag; we will read fiction and poetry that take photography and photographers as their subject, and watch several films that raise issues about photography, representation, and the gaze. We will explore what it means to write about the history of photography, and how one might critique contemporary art photographs. Among the general topics that we will cover will be questions of authenticity and manipulation; identity, portraiture and self-presentation; documentary work; photography, advertising, and social media; news photography and the paparazzi; narrative photography; photography, trauma, and loss; photography and science; and the place of the photograph within self-presentation, autobiography and memory-work. This is not a course in practical photography but you should be prepared to take, upload, and share photographs on occasion during the course (a simple digital camera even a decent cell-phone image - will be enough!). Readings and Seminar Participation: Readings are varied and often challenging. Our primary task as individuals is to read with care, and to read critically taking note of points with which we disagree, about which we would like to know more, which need clarifying, and which, for each one of us as an individual, raise interpretive questions that we wish to pursue. The lectures will introduce and supplement the readings, and will allow plenty of time for questions and for the exchange of ideas both within the whole class, and in smaller break-out groups. On occasion, well head off onto campus to take photographs! As members of discussion sections, you should be ready to enter into in a discussion that helps illuminate the readings, that engages with other peoples views respectfully and intelligently (even if we may disagree with them), and you should feel free to bring in ideas and examples that will add to our understanding and application of the issues involved. This class aims at teaching you to read images as carefully as you will be expected to read critical prose, poetry, fiction, essays, and autobiography. Expectations and Requirements: Students are expected to complete all required reading prior to the lecture in which it will be addressed. Participation will be considered an essential component of the class, and final grades will reflect it. Course work/papers assignments: Class and discussion section participation: 10% Assignment 1: Analyzing a photograph and introducing yourself through it: 10% Assignment 2: Analysis of an advertisement or poem: 10% Assignment 3: Interpretive question: 5% Assignment 4: Exhibition review: 15% 2

Assignment 5: Family photography assignment: 15% Final project: 35% Please bring hard copies of all your assignments to class with you [Christopher McGeorge will collect them] and also email me a copy. Monday August 26th: Introductions Wednesday August 28th: What is a photograph? What work may it do? Wells 59-71 (Susan Sontag, Wright Morris); 130-137 (Victor Burgin) Adrienne Rich, Photograph of an Unmade Bed, [class hand out] Graham Clark, How Do We Read a Photograph? The Photograph, pp. 27-39 [Blackboard] Click: Photography Changes What We Think Reality Looks Like Monday September 2nd: Labor Day: no class Wednesday September 4th: Is photography art? Why has this been a controversial question? Is it still a relevant question? [2 page writing assignment due] Wells 42-58 (Benjamin, Mitchell) Cotton, If this is Art and Deadpan, The Photograph as Contemporary Art, pp. 2147 and 81-113 Lyle Rexer, This is not a Photograph, The Edge of Vision, pp. 179-195 [Blackboard] Monday September 9thh: Early photography and the sense of wonder Well be making our own cyanotypes today if the suns out! [rain day Wednesday 11th]. Please bring an object (or two) that youd like to use to make your image something like a feather, or a leaf, or a piece of lace, or a flower

Anna Atkins, Cyanotype, c. 1850

William Henry Fox Talbot, The Pencil of Nature (1844-46), http://www.gutenberg.org/files/33447/33447-pdf.pdf Julia Margaret Cameron, Annals of My Glass House, (1874) [Blackboard] Wells: [Batchen], pp. 228-239. Wednesday September 11th: Photography and Science Kelley Wilder, Art and the Scientific Photograph, ch. 4 of Photography and Science (London: Reaktion Books, 2009), pp. 102-128. From James Elkins, What Photography Is (New York and London: Routledge, 2011), pp. 126-158. Click: Photography changes medical diagnosis and treatment; Photography changes our knowledge of new species; Photography changes our understanding of light; Photography changes our awareness of global issues and responsibilities; Photography changes natural phenomena into iconic images. Monday September 16th: Photography and the Body (i) Wells 324-342 (Wells intro, + Roberta McGrath and Jan Avgikos) Terry Barrett, Criticizing Photographs, pp. 192-203 [Blackboard] Wednesday September 18th: Photography and the Body (ii) Natasha Trethewey, Bellocqs Ophelia Julio Cortazar, Blow Up, [Blackboard] [Film: Lab 5 p.m. THH 201: Antonioni, Blow-Up] Monday September 23rd: Photography and advertising Wells 114-125 (Roland Barthes)

Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright, Consumer Culture and the Manufacturing of Desire [Blackboard] Click: Photography changes how we shop Wednesday September 25th: Photography and narrative [2-3 page analysis of 1 or 2 advertisements or of two poems by Trethewey due] Cotton, Once Upon a Time, The Photograph as Contemporary Art, pp. 49-79 Orvell, Photographing Fiction, American Photography pp. 163-78 [Blackboard] Lucy Soutter, Dial P for Panties: Narrative Photography in the 1990s. Cynthia Ozick, Shots, Monday September 30th: Do photographs (ever) tell the truth? Does it matter? Wells 202-227 (Sarah Kember, Martin Lister) Graham Clark, The Photograph Manipulated, The Photograph, pp. 187-205 [Blackboard] Erroll Morris, "The Case of the Inappropriate Alarm Clock", Believing is Seeing (Observations on the Mysteries of the Photograph) (2011), pp. 123-185 [Blackboard] Introduction to Mia Fineman, Faking It. Manipulated Photography before Photoshop (2012), pp. 3-43 (Blackboard) Thomas Hardy, An Imaginative Woman [Blackboard] Wednesday October 2nd: Photography and Fiction (i) [and an Introduction to Edward Curtis] Marianne Wiggins, The Shadow Catcher, pp. 1-top of p. 95. Monday October 7th: Photography and Fiction (ii) - and Photography and the American Landscape Marianne Wiggins, The Shadow Catcher, pp. 95-204 Wednesday October 9th: Photography and Fiction (iii) [interpretive question to be mailed to KF and CMcG by 9 a.m.] Marianne Wiggins, The Shadow Catcher, pp. 205-end. Monday October 14th: Photography and Race Wells : (Lippard), pp. 343-353; (hooks), pp 387-394 From Dora Apel and Shawn Michelle Smith, Lynching Photographs (Blackboard). 5

Click! Photography Changes the Struggle for Racial Justice, Photography Changes how Cultural Groups are Represented and Perceived. Wednesday October 16th: Photography and Trauma from Susan Sontag, Remembering the Pain of Others [Blackboard] Sharon Sliwinski, Introduction, and Rolleiflex Witness: 1945, Human Rights in Camera (2011), pp. 1-15 and 83-110 [Blackboard] Geoffrey Batchen, Looking Askance, in eds. Batchen, Mick Gidley, Nancy K. Miller and Jay Prosser, Picturing Atrocity. Photography in Crisis (London: Reaktion Books, 2012), pp. 226-239, and Tom Junod, The Falling Man, ibid. pp. 167-175. [Blackboard]. Wells 288-290 (Berger) [FILM: 5 p.m. Lab: THH 201: Ross Kauffman and Zana Brisk, Born into Brothels.]

Edward Curtis, Oasis in the Badlands, 1905

Monday October 21st: How might we write about a photography exhibition? Terry Barrett, Criticizing Photographs (2006), ch.2 (Describing Photographs) and ch.3 (Interpreting Photographs) Wells: Wells, pp. 428-434. Judy Radul, Notes on Writing Exhibition Reviews, http://www.sfu.ca/~jaradul/reviews.html

and examples of exhibition reviews, made available on Blackboard. Wednesday October 24th: no class [no sections on October 26th] Monday October 29th: (self) portraiture 3-4 page exhibition review due Orvell, Presenting the Self, and Photography and the Image World, American Photography, pp. 19-37 and 183-203 [Blackboard] Click: Photography Changes the Ways We Interact With and Make Pictures of Each Other and the whole of the Who We Are section. Wednesday October 31st: Photography and memory i Barthes, Camera Lucida, sections 1-25 Monday November 4th: Photography and memory ii Barthes, Camera Lucida, section 26 > end. Wednesday November 6th: Personal photography i Poems: Thomas Hardy, The Photograph, Philip Larkin, On Looking into a Young Girls Photograph Album; George Szirtes, On a Young Ladys Photograph Album; Sharon Olds, I go back to May 1937; Ted Hughes, Six Men; W. S. Merwin, I open an old picture of you (Blackboard). Monday November 11th: Personal photography ii Cotton, Intimate Life, The Photograph as Contemporary Art, pp. 137-165 Wells: hooks, In Our Glory: Photography and Black Life, pp. 287-394. Connie May Fowler, No Snapshots in the Attic: A Granddaughters Search for a Cherokee Past, (Blackboard] Marianne Hirsch, Reframing the Human Family Romance [Blackboard] Annette Kuhn, from the Introduction to Family Secrets (1995), pp. 6 10 [Blackboard] Click Photography changes how families are formed.

from the Dear Photograph project, www.dearphotograph.com, 12.12.12.

Wednesday November 13th : Photography and the Global Click! Photography changes how Nationalism is Shaped and Portrayed, Photography Changes Who Can See Images of Us Bill Roberts, Production in View: Allan Sekulas Fish Story and the Thawing of Postmodernism, http://www.tate.org.uk/research/publications/tatepapers/production-view-allan-sekulas-fish-story-and-thawing-postmodernism 3-4 page paper on Family Photographs due Monday November 18th: Photography and books / photographic books Martin Parr and Gerry Badger, Introduction to Phaidon's "The Photo Book," vol. 1 [Blackboard] Joshua Chuang, When the Medium is the Message: The Making of Walker Evans American Photographs and Robert Franks The Americans, Yale University Art Gallery Bulletin, pp. 108-123 [Blackboard] Susan Sontag, America, Seen Through Photographs, Darkly, On Photography, pp. 27-48 Gerry Badger, Sequencing the Photobook, Parts I and II [Blackboard] Wednesday November 20th: Documentary photography i: Ethics, ideology, and photographing strangers Patricia Highsmith, Where the action is (Blackboard) Wells 275-287 (Lisa Henderson) and 291-308 (Becker) Barrett, Criticizing Photographs ch. 5 (Photographs and Contexts). Click: Photography changes who and what we can stare at [Film: Lab 5 p.m. THH 201. Alfred Hitchcock, Rear Window]

Monday November 25th: Documentary photography ii Cotton, Moments in History, The Photograph as Contemporary Art, pp.137-189 Wells 252-274 (Wells intro + John Tagg and Martha Rosler) and 291-308 (Karin E. Becker) Fred Ritchin, The Useful Photographer, Ch. 1 of Bending the Frame. Photojournalism, Documentary, and the Citizen (Aperture, 2013), pp. 8-27. Click: Photography Changes Our Awareness of Poverty Wednesday November 27th: no class: Thanksgiving Break Monday December 2nd: Documentary photography iii Workshopping (imaginary) projects Wednesday December 4th: Photographs of nothing and the limits of photography Italo Calvino, The Adventures of a Photographer [Blackboard] Cotton ch.4 (Something and Nothing) Consideration of the course where have we been, where are we going? FINAL PROJECT DUE MONDAY 16th DECEMBER by 5 p.m. [via email to KF and CMcG]

Required reading Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida. ISBN 0374521344 Charlotte Cotton, The Photograph as Contemporary Art ISBN 0500203806 Natasha Trethewey, Bellocqs Ophelia. ISBN 1555973590 Liz Wells, The Photography Reader. ISBN: 9780415246613 Marianne Wiggins, The Shadow-Catcher ISBN-10: 0743265211 Website: Click! Photography Changes Everything http://www.click.si.edu [Photography Changes Everything is also available as a book: ISBN 1597111996] Recommended reading 9

Juliet Hacking, Photography: The Whole Story. ISBN: 9783791347349 and readings to be made available on Blackboard.

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USC Dornsife College Policies on Student Behavior, Disabilities, and Academic Integrity Our course will follow all of the procedures and policies outlined below: Student Behavior Behavior that persistently or grossly interferes with classroom activities is considered disruptive behavior and may be subject to disciplinary action. Such behavior inhibits other students ability to learn and an instructors ability to teach. A student responsible for disruptive behavior may be required to leave class pending discussion and resolution of the problem and may be reported to the Office of Student Judicial Affairs for disciplinary action. These strictures may extend to behaviors outside the classroom that are related to the course. Students with Disabilities Any student requesting academic accommodations based on a disability is required to register with Disability Services and Programs (DSP) each semester. A letter of verification for approved accommodations can be obtained from DSP. Please be sure the letter is delivered to me (or to TA) as early in the semester as possible. DSP is located in STU 301 and is open 8:30 a.m.--5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday. The phone number for DSP is (213) 740-0776. Academic Integrity USC seeks to maintain an optimal learning environment. General principles of academic honesty include the concept of respect for the intellectual property of others, the expectation that individual work will be submitted unless otherwise allowed by an instructor, and the obligations both to protect one's own academic work from misuse by others as well as to avoid using another's work as one's own. All students are expected to understand and abide by these principles. SCampus, the Student Guidebook contains the Student Conduct Code in Section 11.00, while the recommended sanctions are located in Appendix A: http://www.usc.edu/dept/publications/SCAMPUS/gov/. Students will be referred to the Office of Student Judicial Affairs and Community Standards for further review, should there be any suspicion of academic dishonesty. The Review process can be found at http://www.usc.edu/student-affairs/SJACS/. Ill add to this No cell phones allowed in class. If youre expecting an urgent call (say around a family emergency) alert me in advance to the fact that you might have to go out and answer it.

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This ban on cell phones includes a ban on texting. If you have to miss a class through illness or any other reason, please alert me in advance if humanly possible (via email). If I find that youre misusing your laptop in class on Facebook, writing a paper for another class, on-line shopping, checking your fantasy football squad WHATEVER the entire class will be stopped from using their computers in class. You have been warned.

In the case of an emergency or natural disaster closing the University for more than seven days, the course will continue and be conducted via Blackboard.

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