STUDIES IN CONTEMPORARY PHOTOGRAPHIC ART

ARTH 359: Winter 2020

Tuesdays, 9-11:30

Instructor: Georgia Phillips-Amos

georgia.phillips-amos@mail.concordia.ca
Office Hours: Tuesdays 12-2, in EV-3.782, or by appointment

Teaching Assistant: Sepideh Eghtedari

eghtedari.se@gmail.com

Location: Sir George Williams Campus, EV-1-605

I would like to begin by acknowledging that Concordia University is located on unceded
Indigenous lands. The Kanien’kehá:ka Nation is recognized as the custodians of the lands and
waters on which we gather today. Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal is historically known as a gathering place
for many First Nations. Today, it is home to a diverse population of Indigenous and other
peoples. We respect the continued connections with the past, present and future in our ongoing
relationships with Indigenous and other peoples within the Montreal community.

This territorial acknowledgement was created by Concordia University’s Indigenous Directions

Leadership Group (2017). To read the entire territorial acknowledgement and learn more about
why it was written this way, please visit https://www.concordia.ca/about/indigenous/territorial-
acknowledgement.html.

Course Description and Learning Objectives:

This course will engage with the trends, themes, and genres that have shaped photography’s
relationship to broader artistic and social contexts since the 1980s. From the truth claims of
photography prevalent since Roland Barthes wrote of the photograph as “proof of that which has
been,” to John Tagg’s early criticism of documentary photography as an instrument of state
control, to contemporary artistic responses to surveillance technologies, we will consider
photography as a site of knowledge production. We will ask questions about authorship,
subjectivity, and power, as well as consumption, circulation, and display.
Students will come away from this course familiar with the history of contemporary
photography. They will gain a vocabulary to analyze and address photographs in any context. In
lectures and small-group discussions, we will explore and interrogate the canon of photography
as it stands. We will work in collaboration to decolonize this field of study, developing the tools
to engage in lively debates on new and recent events in the history of the medium.

Readings:
The required textbook for this course is Liz Wells, ed, The Photography Reader, Second Edition
(London: Routledge, 2019). I strongly encourage you to purchase the book new or used. If you
continue to study or practice photography, it will likely be a useful long-term reference. A copy
will also be held on reserve at the library. Additional readings will be made available via PDF or
URL on Moodle and course reserves.

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Note that you will need to do the readings in order to participate in class and complete the
required weekly responses. Always bring the texts under discussion to class.

Office Hours and Email:

Please come to see me during office hours with questions about assignments or requirements.
Feel free to bring concerns or fresh ideas related to the course. If you cannot meet me during
office hours, please email to schedule an alternate appointment. Emails should include a
salutation and full sentences.

Assignments and Assessment Breakdown:

Attendance and Participation — 15%
Includes attendance and participation in class-wide and small-group discussions.

Portfolio — 30 % — weekly responses DUE in class on weeks tagged with a *

You will submit responses to 10 prompts over the course of the term. Each one will be worth 3
marks and graded on a Pass/Fail basis. In order to qualify as a Pass your work must show critical
engagement. At the end of lecture, I will share the prompt for the following week. These will
vary in form—some will ask you to answer or to pose a question related to the text we are
reading that week, while others will require you to analyze particular photographs. Your
portfolio will put into action key ideas from our readings and lectures. Your responses should
prepare you for in-class discussions and should be a resource as your write your exhibition
review and final exam.

Exhibition Review — 25% — DUE in class on March 10

You are free to select an exhibition of your own choosing, in Montreal or abroad, for a 850-1000
word review. I suggest Cindy Sherman, Laurie Simmons, and Rachel Harrison’s About
Face/Volte-face, at the MMFA; Le Tirage Unique, at La Castiglione gallery; or Emmanuelle
Léonard’s Deployment, at Galerie UQAM. You must visit your chosen exhibition in person,
more than once if possible, and take your time with the works. Pass alternate ideas by me before
you start. If you select a different exhibition, the show you pick must either be exclusively of
photographs OR it may be a multi-media exhibition in which you find a photograph particularly
compelling or troubling enough to center in your writing.
For this assignment, consider the content of the exhibition, the background of the artist or
group of artists, the materiality of the work, and the institutional framing (i.e. How are the
photographs presented? What role does text and narrative play?). The key is not to mimic the
description that the artist or curator has produced but rather to give your own original thoughts
and reflections grounded in the art works and informed by the themes we are exploring in this
class. You must provide detailed analysis of one to three specific pieces, your review must
engage quotations from a minimum of two texts covered in class, and one source beyond the
material provided in class found through your own research. You will be graded on formal
analysis, your ability to connect the photographs to theory, as well as your argumentation and
writing style. Your final review must have a title (not the title of the exhibition) and must contain
a full bibliography.

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Take Home Exam — 30% — distributed March 31 DUE April 14
Based on the photographs and readings covered in class, a series of three questions will be
provided from which students must select one to answer in essay form. The questions and
detailed instructions will be provided in class on March 31.

Assignment Submissions and Late Policy:

Assignments are due in class. The instructor’s office is a shared space so please never slide your
work under the door. If you cannot hand in your assignment in person, please place a printed
version in the Art History box (3rd floor, outside the department’s doors).
In exceptional circumstances extensions may be granted before an assignment is due.
Late work without an extension is subject to a penalty of 5% per weekday for a maximum of 7
days. If you require accommodation for a disability, the university-wide requirement is that you
please make official arrangements through the Concordia Access Center for Students with
Disabilities as soon as possible.

A Note on Language and Style:

The language of instruction for this course is English, but you may submit written assignments in
English or French. If you write in French, please do not translate quotations or key words from
the English readings. You will be expected to follow the Chicago Manual of Style and the
Oxford English Dictionary in your writing. Always proofread written assignments before
submitting. All written assignments are to be double-spaced in Times New Roman 12-point font.
Pages must be numbered.

The Chicago Manual of Style quick guide is available here:

https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide/citation-guide-1.html.

Classroom Behavior and Technology:

This course is structured to be a place of discussion and exchange. In addition to physical
presence and critical engagement with the course material, you will be expected to participate
with collegiality and respect for everyone in the room. Please arrive on time and do not interrupt
other speakers.
Silence your phones at the start of class and refrain from any technology use in the
classroom beyond what is necessary for your comprehension, participation, and note taking.
Though it may feel private, doing other things online while sitting in the auditorium is disruptive
and disrespectful. Those seated behind you can see your screen and your scrolls. If you find
yourself online shopping, looking at baby yoda memes, or updating your tinder profile rather
than taking notes and participating during class, please leave the room or you will be asked to.
Photographing or otherwise recording lectures without permission is not permitted.

Absences:
Full attendance is expected, but please do not come to class ill. If you know you will be forced to
miss class, please plan ahead and be in touch with the TA by email before class to organize any
possible accommodations. A doctor’s note or other proof may be requested in the case of
unplanned absences due to illness, bereavement, or family emergency. In the case of an extended
absence, you will be responsible for getting notes for missed lectures from a classmate.

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Weekly Readings and Lecture Themes:

Week 1 (Jan 7): Introduction

Overview of the course objectives, lecture structure and themes to be covered.
Explanation of requirements.

Week 2 (Jan 14): Memorial and Projection*

Assigned reading: Roland Barthes, “Extracts from Camera Lucida” (19-30); Marjorie Perloff,
“What has Occurred only Once: Barthes’s Winter Garden/Boltanski’s Archives of the Dead...”
(31-41); Billy-Rae Belcourt, “The Optics of the Language: How Joi T. Arcand Looks with
Words,” Canadian Art, August 29, 2017:
https://canadianart.ca/features/optics-language-joi-t-arcand-looks-words/.

Optional: Liz Wells, Introductions (1-18).

Week 3 (Jan 21): Social and Sensory Impacts of Looking at Photography*

Assigned reading: Walter Benjamin, “Extracts from the Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical
Reproduction” (42-52); W.J.T. Michell, “Benjamin and the Political Economy of the
Photograph” (52-57); Susan Sontag, “Photography Within the Humanities” (77-84); Teju Cole,
“What Does It Mean to Look at This?,” The New York Times Magazine, May 24, 2018
(https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/24/magazine/what-does-it-mean-to-look-at-this.html).

Week 4 (Jan 28): Photography and Narrative*

Assigned reading: Roland Barthes, “Rhetoric of the Image” (128-138); Umberto Eco, “A
Photograph” (139-141); Victor Burgin, “Looking at Photographs” (143-149); Elizabeth Edwards,
“Objects of Affect: Photography Beyond the Image” (172-186).

Note that at 6:30 on January 31, photographer and researcher Gil Pasternak will be speaking in
our lecture hall as part of Concordia’s Speaking of Photography Series:
http://speakingofphotography.concordia.ca/index.php/2019-2020.

Week 5 (Feb 4): Photography and Modernism*

Assigned reading: Hubert Damisch, “Five Notes for a Phenomenology of the Photographic
Image” (99-101); Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, “A New Instrument of Vision” (104-108); John
Szarkowski, “Introduction to The Photographer’s Eye” (111-117); Tina Mondotti, “Sobre la
fotografia,” (109-110); Edward Weston, “Seeing Photographically” (118-122); Roberta
McGrath, “Re-reading Edward Weston: Feminism, Photography and Psychoanalysis,” in Liz
Wells’s The Photography Reader (First Edition), (327-337).

Listen to: “Photo Credit: Negatives of the Bauhaus,” 99% Invisible Episode 225:
https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/photo-credit-negatives-bauhaus/.

Week 6 (Feb 11): Art Photography*

Assigned reading: Abigail Solomon-Godeau, “Photography After Art Photography” (205-222);
Rosalind Krauss, “Photography’s Discursive Spaces: Landscape/View” (223-241); Lucy Soutter,
“Why Art Photography” (275-284).

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Week 7 (Feb 18): Exhibition Visit*
During this class period, visit a photography exhibition at a museum or gallery, following my
suggestions above, or of your own choice if approved by email. Look, reflect, and conduct
formal analysis. Your portfolio task this week will include taking your own photograph—a selfie
at the show you intend to review.

Assigned Readings: Andy Grundberg, “The Crisis of the Real: Photography and Postmodernism”
(242-259); Steve Edwards, “Snapshooters of History: Passages on the Postmodern Argument”
(260-274); Victor Burgin, “Conversation with Hilde Van Gelder,” (285-299).

Week 8 (Feb 25): Mid-term break

Week 9 (Mar 3): Deployment*

Artist lecture by Emmanuelle Léonard: http://www.emmanuelleleonard.org

Week 10 (Mar 10): Access, Consent, and Appropriation

Assigned reading: Martha Rosler, “In, Around, and Afterthoughts (on Documentary
Photography)” (335-357); Lisa Henderson, “Access and Consent in Public Photography” (358-
369); Edmundo Desnoes, “Cuba Made Me So (406–418); Carol Payne and Jeffrey Thomas,
“Aboriginal Interventions into the Photographic Archives: A Dialogue between Carol Payne and
Jeffrey Thomas,” Visual Resources, Vol. XVIII, pp. 109-125.
Exhibition review due in class.

Week 11 (Mar 17):3 Self Representation*

Assigned Reading: bell hooks, “In Our Glory: Photography and Black Life,” in The Photography
Reader First Edition (387-394); Aphrodite Désirée Navab, “Unsaying Life Stories: The Self-
Representational Art of Shirin Neshat and Ghazel,” The Journal of Aesthetic Education, Volume
41, Number 2, Summer 2007; Deborah Willis and Zanele Muholi, “Faces and Phases,” Aperture
Issue 218, Spring 2015; Che Gossett, “Photography Makes Me Look Within: a Tribute to Laura
Aguilar,” Frieze, 2 May 2018.
Watch: Carrie Mae Weems interviewed by the National Gallery of Art, September 12, 2015:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jIwiBgSNtk.

Week 12 (Mar 24): Digital Reproduction and Circulation*

Geoffrey Batchen, “Photogenics” (432-443); Daniel Palmer, “Redundancy in Photography”
(444-450); Lev Manovich, “The Paradoxes of Digital Photography” (451-459); Martin Lister,
“Introduction to the Photographic Image in Digital Culture” (471-485); Hito Steyerl, “In Defense
of the Poor Image” (2012), e-flux, Journal #10 – November 2009:https://www.e-
flux.com/journal/10/61362/in-defense-of-the-poor-image/.

Week 13 (Mar 31): Digital Photography: Facts and Fiction*

Assigned reading: Fred Ritchin, “Extracts from Pixels and Paradox” (460-470); Sarah Kember,
“The Shadow of the Object’: Photography and Realism” (370-384), Matthew Biro, “From
Analogue to Digital Photography: Bernd and Hilla Becher and Andreas Gursky” (486-502);
Lauren Cornell, “Self-Portraiture in the First-Person Age,” Aperture, Winter2015, Issue 221, 34-
41: https://aperture.org/blog/self-portraiture-first-person-age/.

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Instructions for Final Exam will be handed out on March 31.

Week 14 (April 7): Surveillance and Opacity*

Assigned Reading: John Tagg, “Evidence, Truth and Order: Photographic Records and the
Growth of the State” (307-310); Kate Crawford and Trevor Paglen, “Excavating AI: The
Political Images in Machine Learning Training Sets,” The AI Now Institute, NYU (September 19,
2019): https://www.excavating.ai/; Zach Blas, “Informatic Opacity,” The Journal of Aesthetics
and Protest, Issue 9, Summer 2014: http://joaap.org/issue9/zachblas.htm; American Artist, “A
Declaration of the Dignity Image,” The New Inquiry, September 13, 2016:
https://thenewinquiry.com/a-declaration-of-the-dignity-image/.

Optional: Edouard Glissant, “For Opacity,” Poetics of Relation, 1990 (189-194).

Final Take-Home Exam due between 12-2 April 14: Printed copy to be delivered to my
office.

Important Dates:
Mon, Jan. 20 Deadline for withdrawal with tuition refund (DNE)
Mon, Jan. 20 Last day to add Winter-term courses
Tues, Feb 25 No Class (Mid-term break)
Mon, Mar. 23 Last day for academic withdrawal from Winter-term courses (DISC)
Tues, Mar. 17 Guest Lecture
Thu, Apr. 9 Last day of classes
Thu, Apr. 16 Exam period begins

Grading:
A+ 90 – 100% B+ 77 – 79% C+ 67 – 69% D+ 57 – 59% F 0 – 49%
A 85 – 89% B 73 – 76% C 63 – 66% D 53 – 56%
A- 80 – 84% B- 70 – 72% C- 60 – 62% D- 50 – 52%

"A" indicates Exceptional Performance: comprehensive in-depth knowledge of the course

principles and materials, fluency in communicating that knowledge, and independence in
applying it.
"B" indicates Good Performance: thorough understanding of the breadth of materials and
principles treated in the course and ability to apply and communicate that understanding
effectively.
"C" indicates Satisfactory Performance: basic understanding of the breadth of principles and
materials treated in the course and an ability to apply and communicate that understanding
competently.
"D" indicates Minimally Competent Performance: adequate understanding of most principles and
materials treated in the course, but significant weakness in some areas and in the ability to apply
and communicate that understanding.
"F" indicates Failure: inadequate or fragmentary knowledge of the principles and materials
treated in the course or failure to complete the work required in the course.

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Research Assistance:
To learn what resources are available to you through the Concordia University library and how
to make best use of them go to: http://www.concordia.ca/library/guides/art-history.html.

For further guidance, book an appointment with Concordia’s Fine Arts Librarian John Latour:
john.latour@concordia.ca.

Academic Integrity:
Plagiarism, defined by the university as “the presentation of another person’s work as your own
without proper acknowledgement,” is considered a serious academic offence. It also tends to be
easy for readers to detect. In order to avoid inadvertent plagiarism, always provide full citations
when referencing someone else’s ideas. When in doubt, consult Concordia’s Academic Code of
Conduct: https://www.concordia.ca/students/academic-integrity.html.

Student Services and Useful Resources:

Art History Department Coordinator: Dina Vescio dina.vescio@concordia.ca.
Access Centre for Students with Disabilities: http://concordia.ca/offices/acsd.
Student Success Centre: http://concordia.ca/students/success.
Counselling and Psychological Services: http://concordia.ca/students/counselling-life-skills.
Health Services: http://concordia.ca/students/health.
Sexual Assault Resource Centre: http://concordia.ca/students/sexual-assault.html.
Indigenous Directions: http://concordia.ca/about/indigenous.html.
CSU Advocacy Centre: https://www.csu.qc.ca/services/advocacy/.
International Students Office: http://concordia.ca/students/international.
Writing Assistance: https://www.concordia.ca/students/success/learning-support/writing-
assistance.html.
If you need to improve your English language writing skills, please consider registering for a
composition course in the English department.
Library Guide to Chicago Style Citations: https://library.concordia.ca/help/citing/chicago.php.
Financial Aid and Awards: http://concordia.ca/offices/faao.
HOJO (Off Campus Housing and Job Bank): http://csu.qc.ca/hojo.
Academic Integrity: http://concordia.ca/students/academic-integrity.