This is an archived course. A more recent version may be available at ocw.mit.edu.

Readings

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Required Texts

Amazon logo Sontag, Susan. On Photography. New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1977. ISBN: 9780374226268.

Amazon logo ———. Regarding the Pain of Others. New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002. ISBN: 9780374248581.

Amazon logo Alloula, Malek. The Colonial Harem. Minnesota, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1986. ISBN: 9780816613847.

Amazon logo Berger, John, and Jean Mohr. Ways of Seeing. New York, NY: Penguin Books, 1990. ISBN: 9780140135152.

Amazon logo Newhall, Beaumont. The History of Photography: From 1839 to the Present. New York, NY: Bulfinch; 5 edition, 1982. ISBN: 9780870703812.

WeeK # Topics Readings

1

Introduction: The Power of Photography

Benjamin, Walter. "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction." Illuminations. New York, NY: Harcourt Brace Jovanovitch, 1968, pp. 217-251.

Newhall. pp. 9-71.

2

Histories
 

Berger. Ways of Seeing. pp. 7-34.

Newhall. pp. 9-71.

3

Anthropology and Photography

Newhall. pp. 85-139, 141-197.

Rosenbaum, Ron. "The Great Ivy League Nude Posture Photo Scandal." The New York Times, Sunday Magazine, January 15, 1995.

Recommended

Pinney, Christopher. "The Parallel Histories of Anthropology and Photography." In Anthropology and Photography, 1860-1920. Edited by Elizabeth Edwards. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1992, pp. 74-95.

4

Albums and Family Photographs: Western and Eastern

Katriel, Tamar, and Thomas Farrell. "Scrapbooks as Cultural Texts: An American Art of Memory." Text and Performance Quarterly 11, no. 1 (1991): 1-17.

Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Barbara. "Kodak Moments, Flashbulb Memories: Reflections on 9/11." (PDF) The Drama Review 47 (2003).

Sontag. On Photography. pp. 3-85.

5

Photography as Fragment, Photos as Evidence: Portraits, ID Photos

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, 1996, pp. 470-478.

Newhall. pp. 199-267.

Sontag. On Photography. pp. 85-end.

Recommended

Simon, Taryn. The Innocents. New York, NY: Umbrage, 2003.

6

Mug Shots, Memorial Books

Visual Anthropology

Slyomovics, Susan. "Memory of Place." In The Object of Memory. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998, pp. 1-28.

7

Aerial Photography

Collier, John, Jr., and Malcolm Collier. Visual Anthropology: Photography as Research Method. Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press, 1987, pp. 29-63.

Gladwell, Malcolm. "The Picture Problem." The New Yorker, December 13, 2004, pp. 74-81.

Amazon logo Whyte, William H. The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces. Project for Public Spaces Inc., March 1, 2001, pp. 94-111. ISBN: 9780970632418.

8

Nature Photographs:
The Case of National Geographic

True or False?

Lutz, Catherine, and Jane Collins. "The Photograph as an Intersection of Gazes: The Example of National Geographic." Visual Anthropology Review 7, no. 1 (1991): 143-149.

Brower, Kenneth. "Photography in the Age of Falsification." The Atlantic Monthly (May 1998): 92-111.

9

Fashion Photography and Paparazzi

 

10

Photography and Gender

Berger. Ways of Seeing. pp. 36-81.

11

Photography and Orientalism

Nochlin, Linda. "The Imaginary Orient." The Politics of Vision. New York, NY: Harper & Row, 1989, pp. 35-59.

Alloula, Malek. The Colonial Harem. Minnesota, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1986.

12

Iraq Photos

Conclusions and Copyright Law: Who Owns the Image?

The Abu Ghraib Investigations: Official Reports. Public Affairs. New York, NY, 2004.

Sontag, Susan. "The Photographs Are Us." New York Times Magazine, May 23, 2004.

———. Regarding the Pain of Others. New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003.

Berger. Ways of Seeing. pp. 83-end.

13

Student Presentations