This course is designed as an intensive classroom experience with a fairly modest amount of homework: the weekly assignment will be approximately 20 pages of reading, 20-30 pictures to look at, and 2 pages of writing.  Please come to class prepared, awake (despite the late hours), and ready to look at some great images!

Requirements:

ATTENDANCE is not graded per se but is highly recommended because material will be presented that is not available elsewhere, so absences will necessarily impact the quality of a student's work.  If you have to miss a class or part of a class, let me know as soon as possible. One or two class periods will be rescheduled to allow visits to photography exhibitions in museums; if schedule conflicts prevent you from attending with the class, you must visit the museums on your own and turn in assignments via email.

PARTICIPATION will be graded at each class session.  Discussion topics, based on assigned reading selections and pictures to look at, are given in advance (see Class Schedule, below).  If you miss a class or want to improve your participation grade, you may substitute a written essay with my prior approval.

Weekly QUIZZES check your familiarity with the most important images, artists, facts, and vocabulary from readings and lectures.  I will give you a list of not more than 20 items per week to study; a typical quiz will include 5 images to identify and 5 names or terms to explain.

Short weekly HOMEWORK assignments (approximately 2 pages each) help you process information in lectures and readings and prepare for discussions.  The typical written homework assignment will focus on a specific photograph, photographer, or issue, and it will also emphasize one writing skill such as compelling visual description; judicious use of facts, observations, and quotations garnered from your reading; or construction of persuasive arguments.  Some optional photographing assignments, including written commentary, will be offered for students who wish to engage first-hand with the medium (no particular experience required).

For the TERM PROJECT, which includes both a written component and a brief oral presentation in class, you will be asked to articulate a personal, historically-informed commentary on the relationship between art and photography and the relevance (or irrelevance) of each in modern life.  Drafts of parts of the term project may be assigned in advance as homework or as in-class writing.  The instructor will work with you to develop a project that incorporates course material and is relevant to your personal and/or professional interests.  Your project will involve library and/or internet research.  Possible projects include writing research papers, designing mock exhibitions, presenting your own photographs or illustrated journal, or reviewing current photographic practices in your field.

In order to pass the class, all written work - quizzes, homework assignments, and the final project - must be completed.  Written work must be typed, double-spaced, in a regular 12-pt. font, on white paper with 1” margins, on numbered pages that are stapled together. Label each assignment with your name, the due date, the class name or number, and the name or title of the assignment.  Be sure to credit your sources if any and attach the UVa honor pledge (see below).  If you need to submit an assignment via email, please send it as a .pdf file, named with your last name followed by the due date.

There will be no final exam in this class.        

Evaluation Standards:

Assignments will be graded on a 100-point scale and the final grade will be calculated as follows: 93-100=A, 90-92=A-, 87-89=B+, 83-86=B, 80-82=B-, 77-79=C+, 73-76=C, 70-72=C-, 67-69=D+, 63-66=D, 60-62=D-, 0-59=F.

Participation, level and quality, 15%. Evaluation criteria: demonstrated familiarity with assigned materials; synthesis of ideas and information from multiple sources.

Quizzes, 15%. Evaluation criteria: correct identification of assigned images and terms.

Homework, 35%. Evaluation criteria: demonstrated understanding of lectures and assigned material (specific criteria given with each assignment); clarity of writing; correct format and length.

Term project, 35%. Evaluation criteria: successful application or integration of course content with chosen issue or field of inquiry (specific criteria developed in consultation with each student); evidence of both original thought or organizational effort and judicious use of authoritative sources; clarity of presentation (both oral and written); correct format and length. 

Class Schedule (tentative):

Week 1. What are some of the roles of photography in our lives, and how important is it?  What might a world without photography be like?  What, in fact, is photography?  And what about the same questions, asked about art?

Week 2. What do photographs look like--is there such a thing as a photographic look? What are the main visual effects that can be attributed to lenses, shutters and exposure times, chemical sensitivities, and the presence of cameras?  Which effects are more important for "photographic realism," which effects lend themselves more readily to fantasy or fiction, and why? 

Week 3. Why was photography not considered art when it first appeared? Since then, how have artistic practices confirmed or challenged that exclusion? Does creativity matter in photography? Can photographers' biographies help us understand their pictures? Is there such a thing as personal photographic style? 

Week 4. Documentary, as opposed to what? What contexts and conventions can make a photograph count as a document? If changing contexts result in changing meanings, is there such a thing as photographic truth? What makes a photograph count instead as propaganda, or as a photographer’s merely personal expression?

Week 5. Fantasy, fiction, and memory in photography. What might count as fiction in photography? Why does fiction work so differently in film, which is also based in photography? What can these things tell us about our assumptions about temporality and truth?

Week 6. No regular class; visits to museums and galleries to be scheduled.

Week 7. Seeing differently: photography as new vision. How has the camera changed the way we see?  Does how we see matter more than what we see, or can they even be distinguished from one another?  Is there such a thing as abstract photography? 

Week 8. How does photography, especially portrait photography, shape our experiences of personal, family, social, and ethnic identity?  Does photography promote communication and understanding between people, or does it just reinforce stereotypes? 

Week 9. Photography as voyeurism. What kind of social, political, and psychological activity is the act of photographing? What difference does it make if a photograph is posed or staged, as opposed to “candid”? What are the power relations between the photographer, the photographed subject, and the photograph’s audience? What does all this have to do with art? 

Week 10. "Color photographs look less real, and they are less serious." What historical conditions and what cultural assumptions about color can help explain this mid-20th-century statement?  Insofar as we have moved away from the values expressed this statement, what fundamental changes is our society undergoing? 

Week 11. What, if any, difference does the advent of digital photography make? What is happening to our assumptions about truth versus fiction in photography?

Week 12. "Photography is at the core of contemporary art." Explain this early 21st-century statement. To the extent that photography has become accepted as an art form, how has it changed the definition of art? What is at stake in continuing, or not continuing, to question the relationship between art and photography?

Week 13. No regular class; visits to museums and galleries to be scheduled.

Week 14. Concluding discussions; presentations of final projects.

Communication:

I check my email on weekday mornings and usually respond within 24 hours. After that, please resend.

As a courtesy, I will send an email to answer or acknowledge receipt of any question or attachment you send me; please resend it if you don't hear from me soon.  I ask that you return the favor and answer or acknowledge questions or attachments that I send you.  (This does not apply to announcements posted on Collab that are distributed by email to the whole class.)

Assignments:

Assignments will be announced in class each week and also posted in Collab.

Resources:

Required textbooks: 1) Edwards, Steve. Photography, A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press, 2006. ISBN 978-0-19-280164-7.  2) Photography Speaks: 150 Photographers On Their Art. New York: Aperture, 2005. ISBN 978-1931788502.

Electronic resources include .pdf and .jpg files and external web sites for reading and viewing. Links to relevant resources will be given in each assignment, and all resources will also be cached in the Resources section of the course Collab site. In particular, you will be asked to look at some of the essays on photography at The Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History,  http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hi/te_index.asp?s=all&t=all&d=photographs, and at the site for the exhibition A Democracy of Images: Photographs from the Smithsonian American Art Museum, http://americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/archive/2013/photographs/.

We will also consider how photography is portrayed in movies, including the following: Rear Window (dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1954), Blow-Up (dir. Michelangelo Antonioni, 1966), Blade Runner (dir. Ridley Scott, 1982), Under Fire (dir. Roger Spottiswoode, 1983), Fairy Tale: A True Story (dir. Charles Sturridge, 1997), and Amelie (dir. Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 2001). Parts of these will be shown in class, but you are encouraged to watch the entire movies on your own if you are interested.

Gradebook:

The Collab Gradebook will be used for this class and updated weekly, barring technical difficulties. 

Technical Support Contacts:

Login/Password: scpshelpdesk@virginia.edu

UVaCollab: collab-support@virginia.edu

BbCollaborate (Elluminate) Support: scpshelpdesk@virginia.edu or http://support.blackboardcollaborate.com

University Email Policies:

Students are expected to check their official U.Va. email addresses on a frequent and consistent basis to remain informed of University communications, as certain communications may be time sensitive.  Students who fail to check their email on a regular basis are responsible for any resulting consequences.

University of Virginia Honor System: 

All work should be pledged in the spirit of the Honor System at the University of Virginia.  The instructor will indicate which assignments and activities are to be done individually and which permit collaboration.  The following pledge should be written out at the end of all quizzes, examinations, individual assignments and papers:  “I pledge that I have neither given nor received help on this examination (quiz, assignment, etc.).”  The pledge must be signed by the student.  For more information please visit Honor System.

Special Needs:

It is the policy of the University of Virginia to accommodate students with disabilities in accordance with federal and state laws.  Any SCPS student with a disability who needs accommodation (e.g., in arrangements for seating, extended time for examinations, or note-taking, etc.), should contact the Learning Needs and Evaluation Center (LNEC) and provide them with appropriate medical or psychological documentation of his/her condition.  Once accommodations are approved, it is the student’s responsibility to follow up with the instructor about logistics and implementation of accommodations.  Accommodations for test taking should be arranged at least 14 business days in advance of the date of the test(s).  Students with disabilities are encouraged to contact the LNEC: 434-243-5180/Voice, 434-465-6579/Video Phone, 434-243-5188/Fax.  Further policies and statements available at U.Va. Special Needs Website.

For further policies and statements about student rights and responsibilities, please see U.Va  Website (http://www.scps.virginia.edu/audience/students).

Revised July 26, 2013