Capturing the Visual World: Photographic Reproduction from Daguerreotype to Digital Culture, Art, and Technology (CAT) 2 Sixth College

Transcription

1 Capturing the Visual World: Photographic Reproduction from Daguerreotype to Digital Culture, Art, and Technology (CAT) 2 Sixth College Prof. Kelly Gates Department of Communication, Science Studies Program, and Critical Gender Studies kagates@ucsd.edu ( CAT 2 in subject line) Office: MCC 125B Office Hrs: Wed 2:00-3:00 and Thurs 3:45-4:45 Lectures: Tues-Thurs 2:00pm-3:20pm, SOLIS 104 COURSE DESCRIPTION The transition to digital photography provides occasion to reflect anew on the history of the medium. This course explores that history from the 1820s to the present, not through lens of well-known inventors or photographers but from a broader socio-cultural perspective. We will give special attention to the history of consumer photography, police use of photography and the introduction of photographic evidence in the legal system, medical and scientific uses of still photography, the rise of photojournalism, the integration of photography into advertising, the advent of motion pictures, and photo manipulation. In addition, we will find many occasions throughout the course to examine the social and cultural implications of digital imaging techniques, online photo sharing, and other more recent developments. Rather than treating it as an isolated technology, the course examines photography as a set of diverse cultural and institutional practices, as a technology that modern societies have used to tell stories about themselves and make particular claims about reality. We will focus less on the technical and aesthetic dimensions of photography and more on its social uses and cultural meanings, as well as how those uses and meanings have changed (and stayed the same) over time. Our goal is to gain a deeper understanding of the ways that photography is used and how each of us uses it to shape how we see the world and our places within it. ASSESSMENT Final grades for the course will be based on participation in section discussions (15%), participation in CAT events (5%), three required writing assignments (20% each), and a final exam (20%). Please see the course schedule below for writing assignment due dates. 1

2 REQUIRED READINGS The required readings for the course are compiled in a course packet available at A.S. Soft Reserves, located on campus at Student Center A. The articles have been carefully selected to help you better understand the topics covered in the course, and to both facilitate and complement the writing assignments. You can access the articles assigned for the first 2 weeks of class on WebCT, giving you ample time to purchase the course packet. Follow the course schedule outlined below, completing the readings on the date they are listed. COURSE SCHEDULE Jan 4 Jan 6 Introduction to the course What is photography? Readings: (1) Susan Sontag, On Photography, in Crowley & Heyer, eds. Communication in History: Technology, Culture, Society. 4 th Edition. (Allyn and Bacon, 2003): [NOTE: This is an excerpted version of a longer essay by Susan Sontag, titled In Plato s Cave, first published 1973 as Chapter 1 of her book, On Photography.] (2) Michelle Slatalla, Have Camera, Will Shoot, and Shoot, The New York Times, May 28, [This is a more recent article from the Fashion & Style section of The New York Times.] Jan 11 Popular photography today: Camera phones and online photo sharing Readings: (1) Lisa Gye, Picture This: The Impact of Mobile Camera Phones on Personal Photographic Practices, Continuum 21:2 (2007) (2) Tamar Lewin, Rethinking Sex Offender Laws for Youth Texting. The New York Times, March 20, Jan 13 How was photography born? Reading: Brian Winston, How are Media Born? in Questioning the Media: A Critical Introduction, John Downing, Ali Mohammadi, and Annabelle Sreberny-Mohammadi, Editors (Sage Publications, 1990). Writing prompt 1 distributed: Camera advertisement analysis Jan 18 Looking back: Image capture before photography Readings: Beaumont Newhall, The Illusive Image, in The History of Photography (Museum of Modern Art, 1982): Due in section: Camera advertisement 2

3 Jan 20 The invention of photography Readings: (1) Beaumont Newhall, Invention, in The History of Photography (Museum of Modern Art, 1982): (2) The First News Accounts of the Daguerreotype, 1839, in Beaumont Newhall, ed. Photography: Essays and Images (Museum of Modern Art, New York: 1980): Due in section: First draft of Paper 1. Jan 25 The importance of portraits Reading: (1) Naomi Rosenblum, A Plentitude of Portraits, , in A World History of Photography, 4 th Edition (Abbeville, 2007): (2) Charles Baudelaire, Photography (written in 1859), in Beaumont Newhall, ed. Photography: Essays and Images (Museum of Modern Art, New York: 1980): Jan 27 Photographic truth and fakery Readings: (1) Stephen Petersen, Frauds and Fakes, in John Hannavy, ed. Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-Century Photography (Routledge, 2008): (2) Photographic Lies, The Harmsworth Magazine, vol , [NOTE: THIS READING, FROM AN 1898 EDITION OF THE HARMSWORTH MAGAZINE, IS NOT IN THE COURSE PACKET. FIND IT ONLINE AT GOOGLE BOOKS.] (3) See slide show, A Brief History of Photo Fakery, The New York Times, at: In Section: First drafts of Paper 1 returned. Feb 1 Photographic evidence: Early police uses of photography Readings: (1) Anne-Marie Eze, Police Photography, in John Hannavy, ed. Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-Century Photography (Routledge, 2008): (2) Stephen Monteiro, Crime, Forensic, and Police Photography, in John Hannavy, ed. Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-Century Photography (Routledge, 2008): Due in section: Final Paper 1. Feb 3 Photographic evidence: Early medical and scientific photography Readings: (1) Ron Callender, Scientific Photography, in John Hannavy, ed. Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-Century Photography (Routledge, 2008): (2) Sander L. Gilman, The Origins of Psychiatric Photography, in Seeing the Insane (John Wiley & Sons, 1982): Writing prompt 2 distributed: News photo analysis 3

4 Feb 8 Early photojournalism Reading: Ulrich Keller, Early Photojournalism, in Crowley & Heyer, eds. Communication in History: Technology, Culture, Society. 5 th Edition. (Allyn and Bacon, 2006): Due in section: Photograph for news photo analysis paper Feb 10 Photojournalism Reading: Michael Griffin, The Great War Photographs: Constructing Myths of Memory and Photojournalism, in Brenen and Hardt, eds. Picturing the Past: Media, History, Photography. (University of Illinois Press, 1999): [Recommended: Susan Sontag, Looking at War: Photography s View of Devastation and Death, The New Yorker, December 9, Due in section: First draft of Paper 2 Feb 15 Photojournalism Reading: Matt Crawford, Shots of War: Photojournalism During the Spanish Civil War. [NOTE: This essay is the introduction to UCSD s digital archive of Spanish Civil War photos. In addition to reading the article, browse the photos collected in the archive.] Feb 17 Early motion pictures Readings: (1) S.F. Spira, The Moving Image, in The History of Photography as seen through the Spira Collection (Aperture): (2) Muybridge s Motion Pictures (New Accounts, 1880), in Beaumont Newhall, ed. Photography: Essays and Images (Museum of Modern Art, New York: 1980): In Section: First drafts of Paper 2 returned Feb 22 Early motion pictures Reading: Daniel Czitrom, Early Motion Pictures, in Crowley & Heyer, eds. Communication in History: Technology, Culture, Society. 4 th Edition. (Allyn and Bacon, 2003): Feb 24 Fast forward: Digital cinema Reading: Lev Manovich, What is Digital Cinema? in The Language of New Media (MIT Press, 2002) Due in section: Final Paper 2 4

5 Mar 1 Photography in advertising Readings: (1) Patricia Johnson, From Reality to Fantasy in Early Photographic Advertising, in Real Fantasies: Edward Steichen s Advertising Photography (University of California Press, 1997): (2) Paul McGinnis, Tricks of Advertising Photographs, Modern Mechanix (1931) [NOTE: THIS READING, FROM A 1931 EDITION OF MODERN MECHANIX, IS NOT IN THE COURSE PACKET. IT IS AVAILABLE ONLY ONLINE AT THE URL PROVIDED.] Writing prompt 3 distributed: Photo manipulation paper. Mar 3 Digital photography: Photo manipulation revisited Readings: (1) Lauren Collins, Pixel Perfect: Pascal Dangin s Virtual Reality, The New Yorker (May 12, 2008) (2) Eric Pfanner, A Move to Curb Digitally Altered Photos in Ads, The New York Times (September 28, 2009) Mar 8 Photographic truth and digital image forensics Reading: Hany Farid, Digital Image Forensics, Scientific American (June 2008): Due in section: Draft of Paper 3 (for discussion in section only) Mar 10 Catch Up and Review Final Papers Due Mar 17 Final Exam, 3:00-5:50 ASSIGNMENT SUBMISSIONS POLICY All assignments must be submitted in writing by the day and time specified in the Syllabus, above. Additionally, all assignments must also be submitted digitally via turnitin.com by midnight of the day in which they are due. All graded writing must be submitted to Turnitin.com to receive credit. Late submissions will be penalized. If an assignment is not time stamped in Turnitin.com by midnight on the date it is due, it will be reduced by one full grade (i.e.: An A would be lowered to a B). Papers not submitted to turnitin.com by the time of the final exam will be lowered two full grades (i.e.: An A would be lowered to a C). If you have an emergency and you discuss it with your TA before the deadline, it may be possible to make arrangements but this is not guaranteed. By university policy, the final exam will not be accepted late. You must submit all assigned work to pass the course. 5

6 STUDENTS WITH SPECIAL NEEDS Students with physical or learning disabilities must work with UCSD s Office for Students with Disabilities to obtain current documentation, then contact instructor and TA s to arrange appropriate academic accommodations. For pre-existing needs this should be accomplished in the first two weeks of the quarter; for emerging needs do it as soon in the quarter as possible. To be fair to all students, no individual accommodations will be made unless the student first presents the proper documentation. ELECTRONIC DEVICES AND COURSE PARTICIPATION Electronic devices, including laptops and cell phones, may only be used in class to the extent and for the purposes permitted by the course instructor. Please be aware that even when their use in lecture or discussion section is permitted, using these devices in ways which are distracting to other people in the room, irrelevant to the class, or counterproductive to learning is not acceptable. PARTICIPATION GRADES Here is a description of the kind of participation in the course that would earn you an A, B, C, etc. Your TA may use pluses and minuses to reflect your participation more exactly, but on this sheet we will simply show a general description for each letter grade. A EXCELLENT. You are always well-prepared for discussion in lecture and for section, with almost no absences. You can explain each reading in your own words. In addition, you have already asked yourself questions about what it means, focusing on specific passages that are interesting to you and making connections between various readings and ideas. You express your thoughts clearly and politely, making and supporting specific claims. You respond to what other students are saying in order to have a dialogue with them. You find ways to connect the course material with issues that matter to you personally. You do all section activities with high energy and attention to detail, taking personal responsibility for achieving the assigned goal. B GOOD. You attend lecture and section with few absences. You have done most of the preparation. If you don t understand the reading the first time you read it, you wait to have it explained by the TA. You talk on a regular basis. Sometimes you offer well-thought-out ideas and connections, supported with evidence; sometimes your contributions are merely a statement of opinions or initial reactions. You do assigned activities willingly; but if you run into obstacles, you let the TA or someone else figure out how to overcome those obstacles. C SATISFACTORY. You are present in lecture and section, with few absences, and have done some reading some of the time. You occasionally contribute to the discussion; your contributions are more often opinions than thoughtful efforts to make connections. You re not a real self-starter, and you have to be nudged to participate. You do activities when asked, because it s required. D UNSATISFACTORY. You have multiple absences from section. When you come, you re often not very prepared, and you don t say much. 6

7 You may have a habit of using your cell phone or computer in class to chat or do things not directly related to the course. Playing online poker or shopping for surfboards in either lecture or section, for instance, would be ways to earn a D (or lower) in participation. F FAILING. You have many absences, are habitually unprepared, or are uncooperative. ACADEMIC INTEGRITY You are expected to uphold the standards of academic integrity in all your work. All work that you submit for credit in CAT is expected to be your own original work, created specifically for this class. Where you are making appropriate use of the work of another person, which may include brief quotations, photographs or drawings, charts, special information, specific arguments, etc., you must credit the author of that work by using appropriate and complete citations. If you choose to include in your CAT assignments any data, information, argument or artwork that you have produced for another course, you should identify it as such with an appropriate self-citation, and it should in no way constitute the bulk of the assignment that you are submitting for credit in CAT. UCSD has a university-wide Policy on Integrity of Scholarship, which can be found online at All students must read and be familiar with this Policy. All suspected violations of academic integrity will be reported to UCSD s Academic Integrity Coordinator. Students found to have violated UCSD s standards for academic integrity may receive both administrative and academic sanctions. Administrative sanctions may extend up to and include suspension or dismissal, and academic sanctions may include failure of the assignment or failure of the course. Specific examples of prohibited violations of academic integrity include the following: (although this should in no way be considered an exhaustive list of examples): Academic stealing refers to the theft of exams or exam answers, of papers or take-home exams composed by others, and of research notes, computer files, or data collected by others. Academic cheating, collusion, and fraud refer to having others do your schoolwork or helping or allowing them to present your work as their own; using unauthorized materials during exams; inventing data or bibliography to support a paper, project, or exam; purchasing tests, answers, or papers from any source whatsoever; submitting (nearly) identical papers to two classes. Helping other students to cheat or steal is also cheating. Misrepresenting personal or family emergencies or health problems in order to extend deadlines and alter due dates or requirements is another form of academic fraud. Claiming you have been ill when you were not, claiming that a family member has been ill or has died when that is untrue are some examples of unacceptable ways of trying to gain more time than your fellow students have been allowed in which to complete assigned work. Please do not ask or allow friends or family members to write or substantially edit your work. That is both a violation of academic integrity and a short-circuiting of the learning process. Plagiarism refers to the use of another s work without full acknowledgment, whether by suppressing the reference, neglecting to identify direct quotations, paraphrasing closely or at length without citing sources, spuriously identifying quotations or data, or cutting and pasting the work of several (usually unidentified) authors into a single undifferentiated whole. 7

8 Receipt of this syllabus constitutes an acknowledgment that you are responsible for understanding and acting in accordance with UCSD guidelines on academic integrity. 8