The Image: History of Mass Media II

Catalog description

In 1859 Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote of the new science and art of photography: "Every conceivable object of Nature and Art will soon scale off its surface for us. Men will hunt all curious, beautiful, grand objects, as they hunt the cattle in South America, for their skins and leave the carcasses as of little worth." We now live in the world that Holmes could then only glimpse. In this course we will study the relationship between skin and carcass, surface and reality, through the history of artificial light, photography, film, and television. We will pay special attention to issues of representation, presentation, spectacle and celebrity. Texts may include works from the Bible and Quran, St John of Damascus, Susan Sontag, Jacques Ranciere, Daniel Boorstin, Wolfgang Schivelbush, Deborah Willis, Joshua Gamson, Liz Ewen, Walter Benjamin, and Guy Debord as well as period photographs, films, and television programs.