First-Year Research Seminar: Writing the Visible: Between Images and Prose

Semester and Year	SP 2013
Course Number	FIRST-UG743
Section	001
Instructor	Tahneer Oksman
Days	Mon,Wed
Time	12:30 PM - 1:45 PM
Units	4.0
Level	U
Foundation Requirement

Notes/Restrictions

Open to Gallatin first-year students only.

Description

What can images reveal that words cannot, and vice versa? If “a picture tells a thousand words,” would those words tell the same story as that image? What happens when you try to verbalize what you see? In this first-year research seminar, we focus on texts that are invested in the relationship between words and images. Specifically, we examine photographs and drawn images, including comics, as documentary evidence or testimonials, as sites of manipulation and fantasy, and as objects that help us remember as well as forget. Our readings confront the allure of the visual, prompting us to explore the pulls, as well as the dangers, of believing in what we see. We use writing to think through these questions, as well as develop clear and original arguments that respond to the ideas of others. Students hone their research and writing skills, including developing an argument, citing texts, and evaluating and documenting sources, through a series of writing assignments that culminate in a research essay. Readings may include: Susan Sontag’s On Photography,  Paul Hendrickson’s Sons of Mississippi , John Berger and Jean Mohr’s A Fortunate Man , Virginia Woolf’s Three Guineas , Roland Barthes’s Image-Music-Text , Art Spiegelman’s Maus I , Joe Sacco’s Safe Area Gorazde , Josh Neufeld’s A/D: New Orleans After the Deluge , and W.G. Sebald’s The Emigrants .

Syllabus

FIRST-UG743

Course Type

First-Year Program: Research Seminars (FIRST-UG)