Texts
- Terry Barrett, Interpreting Art: Reflecting, Wondering, and Responding.
McGraw Hill, 2003.
- Graham Clarke, The Photograph.
Oxford U. Press, 1997.
- Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright,
eds. Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual
Culture. Oxford U. Press, 2001.
Syllabus
(This schedule is subject to change; check back
before every class for updates)
Week One: Jan. 13-15
Tu Jan
13:
Introduction to Course
Th Jan 15: On
Seeing and How We Think About What We See
Week Two: Jan. 20-22
Tu Jan 20:
- Sturken and Cartwright, Chapter 1: "Practices of
Looking: Images, Power, and Politics"
- Visual
Perception -- Daniel Chandler
- Images to Study:
- Keywords:
- Background Reading:
Th Jan 22:
Week Three: Jan. 27-29
Tu Jan 27:
- Sturken and Cartwright, Chapter 3:
"Spectatorship, Power, and Knowledge"
- Analysis
of Visual Images -- Ross Woodrow
- Images to Study:
- Background Reading:
Th Jan 29:
- Sturken and Cartwright, Chapter 4: "Reproduction
and Visual Technologies"
Week Four: Feb. 3-5
Tu Feb 3:
- Sturken and Cartwright, Chapter 5: "The
Mass Media and the Public Sphere"
- Images to Study:
- Background Readings:
Th Feb 5:
- Sturken and Cartwright, Chapter 6: "Consumer
Culture and the Manufacturing of Desire"
- Images to Study:
- music videos from Madonna's Immaculate Collection
(in class)
- Background Readings:
Week Five: Feb. 10-12
Tu Feb 10:
- Eric
Stange at Centenary
Eric Stange
is an
award-winning independent documentary film producer,
director, and writer specializing in cultural and social history. His
public television credits include Can
You Stop People From Drinking (for
Nova), which contrasted U.S. and Russian
approaches to alcohol policy and treatment; Love in the Cold War (for The
American Experience), winner of a
CINE Golden Eagle and a Chicago Interational Film Festival Silver
Plaque; Picking up the Pieces, one episode of the PBS series Making Sense of the '60s; Children
of the Left,
which received an American Film & Video Festival Red Ribbon and an
American Library Association citation; and several segments of The Health Quarterly, a national PBS documentary series on
health care policy. Before his film work, Stange wrote about art and
culture for The New York Times, The
Boston Globe, The Atlantic Monthly, The
Independent, and other
publications. He is presently the Executive Producer and Director of
Spy Pond Productions. Eric's recent productions include Zamir: Jewish Voices Return to Poland;
Brother Can you Spare a Billion: The Story of Jesse H. Jones; and
Engineering From the Inside Out.
- Spy Pond Productions
- "Past,
Present, and Future: A Conversation
with Producer Eric Stange" -- Rebecca Prime
- "Art and
Politics: An Interview with Eric Stange"
- "Liten Up"
-- Eric Stange,
Common-Place
We Feb 11: Wednesday night at 7:00
pm in Jackson Hall 304, Eric Stange will introduce his film Murder at Harvard and answer questions afterwards
Th Feb 12:
- Sturken and Cartwright, Chapter 7: "Postmodernism
and Popular Culture"
- Images to study:
- Key words: from ArtLex
- Background Reading:
- Sturken and Cartwright, Chapter 8: "Scientific
Looking, Looking at Science"
- Sturken and Cartwright, Chapter 9: "The Global
Flow of Visual Culture"
- Images to study:
- Background Reading:
Th Feb 19:
Week Seven: Feb. 24-26
No classes
-- Mard Gras Break
Tu Mar 2: Laura Dunn @ Centenary
Laura Dunn, Founder and
Executive Director of Two Birds Film in Austin, Texas. MFA Film,
University of Texas at Austin, 2002. THE SUBTEXT OF A YALE EDUCATION
(1999, 31 minutes, video) documents a labor strike at Yale, won best
documentary at the 1999 National Student Film Festival and toured to 40
universities with the nationwide Michael-Moore sponsored McCollege
Tour. BABY (1999, 5 minutes, 16mm), which connects sex to population
control, was a college winner in the World Population Film and Video
Festival 1999. It was featured at Exit Art's annual exhibition of new
artists, NYC, summer 2000 and Aldrich Museum of Art. GREEN (2000, 47
minutes, 16mm) documents pollution along the Mississippi River
Petrochemical Corridor. It won the 2001 Academy Award for Best Student
Documentary, Hollywood, CA; Global Vision Grand Prize for World
Population Film Festival; Best Documentary at the Making Waves National
Student Film Festival, NYC; Gecko Award at Cinematexas, Austin;
Honorable Mention at Flicker Film Festival, Chicago, IL; and played at
SXSW, Doubletake Documentary, and Great Plains Film Festivals. BECOME
THE SKY (2002, 53 minutes) maps energy and politics 4,000 miles across
Texas and was nominated for the 2002 Student Academy Award. Dunn was
recently awarded a Rockefeller Media Fellowship for Mai Mayim, a
documentary that looks at the Middle East conflict from within the
context of the ecological need for water in Israel, Jordan and the
Palestinian Authority.
We Mar 3: Wednesday night at 7:00
pm in Mickle Hall 114, Laura Dunn will answer questions and lead a discussion
after the screening of her film Green
Th Mar 4:
- Clarke, The Photograph, Chapters 1: "What
is a Photograph?" & 2: "How Do We Read a
Photograph? & Chapter 3:
"Photography in the Nineteenth Century"
- Images to Study:
- Background Reading:
Week Nine: Mar. 9-11
Tu Mar 11:
- Clarke, The Photograph,
Chapters 4: "Landscape in Photography" &
5: "The City in Photography"
- Images to Study:
- Background Reading: (on Ansel Adams)
- Background Reading: (on Robert Adams)
Th Mar 13:
- Clarke, The Photograph, Chapters 6: "The
Portrait in Photography" & 7: "The Body in
Photography"
- Images to Study:
- Background Reading (on Mapplethorpe):
Week Ten: Mar. 16-18
Tu Mar 18:
- Clarke, The Photograph, Chapter 8:
"Documentary Photography"
- Images to Study:
- Background Reading:
Th Mar 20:
- Clarke, The Photograph, Chapter 9:
"The Photograph as Fine Art"
- Images to Study:
- Background Reading:
Week Eleven: Mar. 23-25
Tu Mar 23:
- Clarke, The Photograph, Chapter 10:
"The Photograph Manipulated"
- Images to Study:
- Background Reading:
Th Mar 25:
- Clarke, The Photograph, Chapter 11:
" The Cabinet of Infinite Curiosities"
- Images to Study:
- Background Reading:
Week Twelve: Mar. 30 - Apr. 1
Tu Mar 30:
Th Apr 1:
Week Thirteen: Apr. 6 - 8
Tu Apr 6:
- Barrett, Interpreting
Art: "Introduction"
and Chapter 1: "About Interpretation -- René
Magritte"
and Chapter
2: "Multiple Interpretations of One
Work of Art: Édouard Manet, A Bar at the
Folies-Bergère"
- Images to Study:
- Background reading:
Th Apr 8: No
Class -- Easter Break
Week Fourteen: Apr. 13 - 15
Tu Apr 13:
- Barrett, Interpreting
Art: Chapter 3:
"Interpreting and Judgment:
Controversial Art"
- Images to study:
- Background reading:
Th Apr 15:
- Barrett, Interpreting
Art: Chapter
4: "Interpreting and Appreciation:
Abstract Painting"
- Images to study:
- Background reading:
Week Fifteen: April 20 - 22
Tu Apr 20:
- Barrett, Interpreting
Art: Chapter
5: "Interpreting Old and Foreign Art"
- Images to study:
- Background reading:
Th Apr 22:
Week
Sixteen: Apr. 27 - 29
Tu Apr 27
- Barrett, Interpreting
Art: Chapter 7:
"A Sampler of Interpretations"
and 8:
"Principles for Interpreting
Art"
- Images to study:
- Background Readings:
Th Apr 29 -- No
Class
Final Exam Monday, May
3 9:00am -- 11:00
am Jackson Hall 304
Return
to
Jeff's Home Page
