Syllabus

Week 1 Introductions

Tuesday, January 10: Introduction

Thursday, January 12:  Italo Calvino, “The Adventure of a Photographer” and Susan Sontag, “In Plato’s Cave”

Week 2 Photography and Critique

Tuesday, January 17: Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida, 3–60

Thursday, January 19: Class visit, Vesna Pavlovic

Week 3 Traveling Barthes

Tuesday, January 24: Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida, 61–119

Thursday, January 26: Ronit Matalon, The One Facing Us, 1–50

Week 4 Family Memory

Tuesday, January 31: Ronit Matalon, The One Facing Us, 51–122

Thursday, February 2: Ronit Matalon, The One Facing Us, 123–179

Week 5 Photography and the Colony

Tuesday, February 7: Ronit Matalon, The One Facing Us, 180­–249

Thursday, February 9: Ronit Matalon, The One Facing Us, 250–296 and Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”

Week 6 Photography and Representation

Tuesday, February 14: David Halle, “Displaying the Dream: The Visual Presentation of Family and Self in the Modern American Household” and J. MacNeill Miller, “The Impersonal Album: Chronicling Life in the Digital Age”

Thursday, February 16: Walter Benjamin,  “The Work of Art in the Age of its Reproducibility” and Sigmund Freud, “Mourning and Melancholia”

Week 7 Absent Photographs

Tuesday, February 21: Perec, W or the Memory of Childhood, 1–60

Thursday, February 23 Perec, W or the Memory of Childhood, 61–109

Week 8 Memory and Trauma

Tuesday, February 28: Perec, W or the Memory of Childhood, 110–164

Thursday, March 1: La Jetée

Week 9 Spring Break

Week 10 Memory and the Archive

Tuesday, March 13: W. G. Sebald, “Dr. Henry Selwyn”

Thursday, March 15: W. G. Sebald, “Max Ferber” 149-180

Week 11 The Materiality of Memory

Tuesday, March 20: Vesna Pavlovic class visit

Thursday, March 22: W. G. Sebald, “Max Ferber” 180-237 

Week  12 Writing the Past/Writing the City

Tuesday, March 27:  Tour of Vanderbilt with Lyle Lankford and Orhan Pamuk, Istanbul: Memories and the City

Thursday, March 29: Orhan Pamuk, Istanbul: Memories and the City 1–61

 Week  13 Writing the Past/Writing the City

Tuesday, April 3: Orhan Pamuk, Istanbul: Memories and the City  62–128

Thursday, April 5: Orhan Pamuk, Istanbul: Memories and the City 129–188

Week 14 The Science of Photography and Memory

Tuesday, April 10: Nicholas Muellner, “The New Interval”; Fred Ritchin, “Of Other Times and Places”; Corey Dzenko, “Analog to Digital: The Indexical Function of Photographic Images”

Thursday, April 12: Essays on the science of memory

Week 15 

Tuesday, April 17: Research Day

Thursday, April 19: Final Paper Workshop