Texts and Contexts 1
| Code | Completion | Credits | Range | Language Instruction | Semester |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 307ETAC1 | exam | 2 | 2 seminar hours (45 min) of instruction per week, 32 to 42 hours of self-study | English | winter |
Subject guarantor
Name of lecturer(s)
Tomáš DVOŘÁK, Josef LEDVINA, Noemi PURKRÁBKOVÁ, Michal ŠIMŮNEK
Department
Předmět zajišťuje Department of Photography
Contents
Students will be able to develop and critically evaluate theories, concepts and methods of their field and gain insight into contemporary scholarly literature and canonical works relevant for the thematic areas of the final state exam in history and theory of photography.
The course has the form of regular seminar discussions of scholarly literature. Each semester focuses on one significant title or a selection of texts - students have the reader available before the start of the semester. Students must read required texts before each session and do their own research of other relevant scholarly literature.
The course is taught in English and requires advanced language skills - reading academic texts and discussing them in class.
The readings consist of current theoretical, historical and critical works from photography and visual culture studies and cover five thematic areas of the final state exam in history and theory of photography: Medium specificity, photography and intermediality; Reproducibility (graphic, photographic and digital techniques of reproduction, reproduction and documentation of artworks); Portrait photography and the problem of identity in modern and contemporary societies; Objectivity as an epistemic ideal: scientific photography; Photographer as witness: ethical and political dimensions of photography.
October: introduction
4 November: Medium specificity, photography and intermediality
18 November: Reproducibility (graphic, photographic and digital techniques of reproduction, reproduction and documentation of artworks)
2 December: Portrait photography and the problem of identity in modern and contemporary societies
16 December: Objectivity as an epistemic ideal: scientific photography
Learning outcomes
Students will be able to develop and critically evaluate theories, concepts and methods of their field and gain insight into contemporary scholarly literature.
Prerequisites and other requirements
Advanced English, the ability to study and discuss scholarly texts in English.
Literature
Recommended literature:
Barthes, Roland. Camera Lucida. Reflections on Photography. New York: Hill & Wang, 1980. Barthes, Roland. Image, Music, Text. London: Fontana Press, 1977, pp. 15-51.
Barthes, Roland. Mythologies. New York: Noonday Press, 1972.
Batchen, Geoffrey. Every Wild Idea: Writing, Photography, History. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 2001. Batchen, Geoffrey. Burning with Desire. The Conception of Photography. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1997. Benjamin, Walter. On Photography. London: Reaktion Books, 2015.
Benjamin, Walter. The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility, and Other Writings on Media. Cambridge - London: Harvard University Press, 2008, pp. 19-165, 271-314.
Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. London: BBC & Penguin Books, 1972.
Beshty, Walead (ed.). Picture Industry: A Provisional History of the Technical Image, 1844-2018. Zurich: JRP/Ringier 2018.
Burbridge, Ben - Annebella Pollen (eds.). Photography Reframed: New Visions in Contemporary Photographic Practice. London: Bloomsbury 2018.
Crary, Jonathan. Techniques of the Observer. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1990. Durden, Mark (ed.). Fifty Key Writers on Photography. London: Routledge, 2013.
Edwards, Steve. Photography: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Into the Universe of Technical Images. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2011. Flusser, Vilém. Towards a Philosophy of Photography. London: Reaktion Books, 2000.
Foster, Hal et al, Art Since 1900. Modernism, Antimodernism, Postmodernism. London: Thames & Hudson, 2011. Freund, Gisèle. Photography & Society. Boston: David R. Godine, 1980.
Frizot, Michel et al. A New History of Photography. Cologne: Könemann, 1998.
Goldberg, Vicki (ed.), Photography in Print: Writings from 1816 to the Present. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1981.
Lister, Martin (ed.), 2013. The Photographic Image in Digital Culture. London: Routledge, 2013.
Read, Shirley - Mike Simmons (eds.). Photographers and Research: The Role of Research in Contemporary Photographic Practice. London: Routledge 2017.
Rubinstein, Daniel (ed.). Fragmentation of the Photographic Image in the Digital Age. London: Routledge 2019. Sekula, Alan. Photography Against the Grain. Halifax: The Press of Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, 1984. Sontag, Susan. Regarding the Pain of Others. New York: Picador, 2003.
Sontag, Susan. On Photography. London: Penguin Books, 1977.
Sturken, Marita - Lisa Cartwright. Practices of Looking. An Introduction to Visual Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press 2009.
Tagg, John. The Burden of Representation: Essays on Photographs and Histories. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1988.
Trachtenberg, Alan. Classic Essays on Photography. New Haven, Conn.: Leete's Island Books, 1980.
Warren, Lynne (ed.). Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century Photography. Vol. 1+2. New York - London: Routledge, 2006.
Wells, Liz (ed.). Photography: A Critical Introduction. London: Routledge, 2015. Zylinska, Joanna. Nonhuman Photography. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 2017.
Evaluation methods and criteria
The course is evaluated by a graded exam. Students must actively participate in the seminar discussions and
- choose a relevant scholarly text for each session, present it in the class (5 minutes) or submit a written summary (2-3 pages) of each text
- submit a critical essay (5-10 pages) by January 10, 2025 (send as pdf to tomdvorak@famu.cz).
The exam has the form of a discussion over the submitted text.
Note
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Further information
Course may be repeated
Schedule for winter semester 2024/2025:
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06:00–08:0008:00–10:0010:00–12:0012:00–14:0014:00–16:0016:00–18:0018:00–20:0020:00–22:0022:00–24:00
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| Date | Day | Time | Tutor | Location | Notes | No. of paralel |
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| Mon | 10:40–12:15 | Tomáš DVOŘÁK Michal ŠIMŮNEK |
Room No. 112 Lažanský palác |
lecture parallel1 |
Schedule for summer semester 2024/2025:
The schedule has not yet been prepared
The subject is a part of the following study plans
- Photography CZ - Master_2021 (Required subjects, Elective subjects)
- Photography EN - Master - 2022 (Required subjects)