Photography of Disappearance, ARTH 3591

Professor Claire Raymond

This course explores connections between photography and the vanishing image. The course deals extensively with theories of aesthetics and also closely follows this specific theme of disappearance in photographs, looking at 19^th, 20^th, and 21^st century photographs as they intersect with this theme. There is a fairly demanding reading load for this colloquium, and students will need to be ready to keep up with the reading in order to complete the course. This is a colloquium course, meaning that an emphasis will be placed on classroom discussion, so being prepared with readings is an integral part of completing the course. The syllabus may be subject to change as we move through the semester because in many ways this is a collaborative course, one that should reflect the interests of its participants.

Professor Claire Raymond's contact information: claireraymond@virginia.edu

Tuesdays and Thursdays by appointment (please email the above address to set up a time to talk)

Office: Fayerweather Hall 316

 

Required Texts:

Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida

Course Packet: please purchase the course packet from NK Print and Design, 7 Elliewood (formerly Brillig Books). Students must purchase the course packet: it contains a significant part of the course readings.

Recommended/supportive texts:

Robin Kelsey’s The Meaning of Photography

Geoffrey Batchen’s Photography Degree Zero

 

Images

Graham MacIndoe “Missing Persons”

Photographs by Francesca Woodman

Photographs by Ralph Meatyard

Photographs by Ana Mendieta

Photographs by Carrie Mae Weems

Photographs by Sally Mann

Spirit Photography (various photographers)

Photographs by Gregory Crewdson

Rebecca Belmore, “The Named and the Un-named”

Paula Luttringer El Lamento de Los Muros/the Wailing of the Walls

*All images on our class Collab site unless otherwise noted

 

Course requirements:

Regular attendance and participation in discussion counts for twenty five percent of the term grade. Students are expected to bring a one page (give or take) response paper to the day’s reading each class, and this response paper counts toward the class participation grade. The response paper though brief and casual should be typed; it should reflect on the reading assigned for the day. A significant percentage of the term grade is derived from three related assignments: a prospectus, a presentation, and a paper, all developing a research question chosen by the student. The three to five page prospectus, detailing the student’s research question of choice, counts for five percent of the term grade. The fifteen minute presentation given on the student’s chosen question for research counts for twenty percent of the term grade, and the fifteen page term paper on this same research question counts for forty percent of the term grade. The term paper is due December 6^th. The details for the term paper requirement will be discussed in class during the semester. The remaining ten percent of the grade will be determined by three short reading quizzes given randomly throughout the semester. The research question that each student chooses to pursue for her presentation and term paper must connect thematically with the class, and will be discussed with the professor during office hours.

Note regarding electronic devices: because this class is a colloquium it is important that students be engaged in class participation. Therefore, I ask that you do not use electronic devices-- such as laptops, iPhones, iPads, or any other electronic device--during class. If this policy poses a real and true hardship for you, please speak with me about your situation. For this class you will want to bring to class the reading material assigned for the day, as well as a notebook and a pencil or pen, and of course the write up assignment for each class. 

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Course Schedule: please note, the texts listed below are both written texts and image texts. You are expected to read the written texts before class, whereas we will view the images together during class.

August 23rd

Introduction, two essential questions about this class:  what is a colloquium? What is photography theory? 

August 25^th

Reading: Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida please read pages 1-12

Images: Graham MacIndoe “Missing Persons”

http://grahammacindoe.com/missing/1/

http://blackandmissing.org/

 

August 30^th

Reading: Please read the first two articles from the Collab site file titled "The Perfect Medium."

Images: Spirit Photography

 

September 1^st

Reading from Collab, The Perfect Medium, "Ghost Dialectics," Images: spirit photography 

 

September 6^th

For Tuesday, please read from Collab "Los Desaparecidos" read the folder;

Images from Paula Luttringer, “The Wailing of the Walls”

http://theaftermathproject.org/project/el-lamento-de-los-muros

 

September 8^th

Read from course packet, Armstrong, "Francesca Woodman A Ghost in the House of the Woman Artist"

Francesca Woodman photographs

 

September 13^th

Read Agamben "Melancholy Angel" from our Course Packet

Francesca Woodman imagess

 

September 15^th

Read from Collab, "Baudrillard’s Photography"

Images Ralph Meatyard photographs

http://www.nytimes.com/1994/01/14/arts/review-photography-technique-as-the-gateway-to-the-spiritual.html

 

September 20^th

Walter Benjamin, for Tuesday please read “A Short History of Photography” from Collab

Images Walker Evans photographs

 

September 22^nd

Read from Collab, Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”

Images: August Sander photographs

 

September 27^th

Read from course packet read, Watney, "The Rhetoric of AIDS"

Read from course packet read, Virillio, "The Aesthetics of Disappearance"

Images from Felix Gonzalez Torres (on Collab)

http://felixgonzalez-torresfoundation.org/

see also http://www.tate.org.uk/context-comment/articles/genteel-iconoclasm

 

September 29^th

Read from Camera Lucida, pages 12-42

Photographs by Eugene Atget

 

October 6^th

Read also, from course packet, Michael Fried, “Barthes' Punctum"

Photographs by Diane Arbus

 

October 11^th

Photographs by Ana Mendieta, Silueta Series

Read Camera Lucida, pages 42- 77

 

October 13^th and 18^th

Read for Thursday Claudette Lauzon "What the Body Remembers"

Read for Tuesday Amber Dean "Space, Temporality, History"

please also paste in this address and read this article:

http://www.aboriginalcuratorialcollective.org/features/bearrobe.html

photographs by Rebecca Belmore

 

October 20^th

No class on October 20th, as I will be at a conference giving a paper

Prospectus is due October 21st, Friday, no later than 4 pm: place your printed prospectus in my mailbox in the faculty mail room, right across from our regular classroom. 

 

October 25^th

Please read from course packet, Nancy, "Art, A Fragment"

read also from course packet, Phillips "Disappearing Acts"

 

October 27^th

Read from course packet, Fried, "Jeff Wall and Absorption"

Photographs by Gregory Crewdson, and Jeff Wall

 

November 1

Read from Course Packet, Levinas, "Reality and Its Shadow"

Photographs by Sally Mann and Carrie Mae Weems

 

November 3

Photographs by Zhu Lanqing 

Read Barthes, Camera Lucida please complete the book

In class student presentations begin on November 3^rd : on the day that you give your presentation, you do not need to bring a reading response paper. However, you should bring a works cited for your presentation and turn that in on the day your give your presentation. 

 

November 8 &10

Photographs by Sugimoto and by Koichiro Kurita

Please read Introduction to Light in the Darkroom, from course packet

Please also read, Adorno, on the Culture Industry, from Collab

 

November 15 & 17

Photographs by Mark Ruwedel and by Nan Goldin

For Tuesday please read from Collab resources , Roland Barthes' Mythologies please read the following sections: "Myth on the Right," "Photography and the Electoral Appeal" and "Operation Margarine"  Please note: when reading these sections from Mythologies, Barthes is criticizing, not valorizing, the 'mythemes' that he sees in commonly circulated images and imagery. His work is critique, even though the tone is deadpan. 

Thursday, please read from Collab, Barthes' Mythologies, the section titled "The Great Family of Man" and/or read from Collab, Adorno, The Culture Industry. Please note that some of Barthes' terminology in the "The Great Family of Man" is antiquated. 

​Photographs by Nan Goldin, and photographs from the exhibit, The Family of Man

 

November 29^th

Please read From Lyotard's The Sublime and the Avant Garde (from our course packet)

Photographs by Dayanita Singh

 

December 1st

Please read, Jay Prosser,  Gordon Parks: Taking a Life, from Light in the Dark Room, in our course packet

photographs by Gordon Parks and Roy DeCarava

 

December 6th

Please read "Epilogue" from Light in the Dark Room by Jay Prosser in our course packet

​various photographers will be considered today

 

December 9^th, Term papers due today: Term papers (15 pages) must be submitted by 4 pm, to the box in front of my office, on December 9th, which is a Friday. Papers must be typed and in Times New Roman 12 point font, standard margins. Illustrations and images do not count toward page length: they should be placed at the end of the paper, after the fifteen pages. In other words, this is fifteen pages of your own writing, recounting research into the research question that you frame to focus on during the semester. Please see the Collab announcement posted on 11.28.16 for details regarding the paper.

 

Of further Import:

Plagiarism, the copying of words or ideas from other people, books, or sources, without citing them, is a punishable offense. Written texts, and spoken texts (including lectures) must be cited if they are incorporated into your paper. Ideas as well as verbatim quotes must be cited. When in doubt: cite it! Late work will be marked down, one half letter grade per day late.

Title IX, As a responsible employee of the university, I am required by law to report violent assault committed against a university student. If you have experienced sexual assault and wish to speak with a university employee who is allowed to keep confidentiality, please seek the Women’s Center 434-982-2361, or CAPS 434-243-5150. I also recommend contacting the Sexual Assault Resource Agency, S.A.R.A. at 434-295-7273, or Hotline: 434-977-7273

 

 

 

Thank you! Looking forward to this semester!

CR