IGRPH 5200 Advanced Topics in Photography
This seminar is aimed at graduate students of the MFA in Photography program, and possibly, a few selected undergraduates. With special attention to the impact of the dissemination and reception of digital images in cyberspace on contemporary social and cultural discourses, the seminar will explore various topics related to photography. Each topic, covered in one to two class sessions, will be examined both historically and theoretically. The seminar will treat topics like Veracity, Power and Surveillance, Archive, Trauma, Alterity, etc. with critical emphasis on their interrelationships. The discussion of Trauma, for instance, will investigate its ties with Power and Surveillance, and how the Veracity of photographic images of traumatic events is constructed within a discourse of power; or, how Archives of images of Alterity are compiled by a nation state in the interest of Power and Surveillance. Students will read and discuss a wide range of historical and theoretical texts on photography as well as relevant images, and write interpretative papers to demonstrate their understanding of the issues. What is more, toward the end of the semester, they will collaboratively propose, research, and lead discussions on new topics ramifying from the prescribed ones. In short, they will run the class. These student-led sessions will further underscore the continuity of not only the relevance of the topics, but of their mutating nature.