The Image in Question

Catalog description

This course interrogates the nature of the photographic image. It does so by exploring the relationship of the still and moving image in cinema. Through detailed engagements with a variety of films in which photography plays a central role, the course develops critical assessments of the social and cultural uses of the photographic image: What is the relationship between image and truth and image and memory? How has the photographic image shaped our understanding of family and self? How have communities been represented and represented themselves? What are the ethics of documentary photography? How do class and gender inflect the histories of the image? These and other questions will be approached through a rigorous engagement with aesthetic experience, so that the nature of film and the photograph will also remain at the forefront of our discussions. In addition to producing scholarly written work, students will be required to produce a film of 2 to 4 minutes in length using only still images.