Imaging Culture

Imaging Culture: Representation and Visual
Anthropology.
As the discipline originally chartered to
classify 'races of man,' images and their
interpretation have long been important
components of anthropology. From early
anthropometrics and photographic recordings of
rituals and daily practices, to ethnographic film
and multimedia works, anthropologists have
integrated visuals in a range of forms and uses
that closely parallel technological developments
in imaging. This extensive integration, however,
has been accompanied by a conflicting set of
positions regarding visuals and their
relationship to methodology, representation, and
interpretation.

This course explores issues of debate that
visuals stimulate in ethnographic projects as
well as the methods used to produce them. It
takes a survey approach to anthropological
visuals, with an emphasis on works that have
shifted the perspective of how images and their
production impact relationships among subjects,
between subjects and ethnographers, between
ethnographers and their work, and between these
works and their audiences. In addition to films
and readings, students will participate in a
series of visual exercises that will enable them
to engage with the issues of representation
considered in the course.