ANSO168 - Spring - 6 ECTS
Tuesday 10h15 - 12h00
Course Description
At a time of renewed calls to “decolonize” academia, this course explores what it might mean to decolonize the image. We will look at work on images to ask what decolonizing the image has meant in different moments and what it means, particularly, today. Increasingly scholars have moved from asking what an image says (representationally) to how it works (and what work people do with images), what modalities and forms of efficacy it has and is understood to have in different times and places, and what it produces in terms of political possibilities and limits. Admittedly, the wide use of the term “decolonize” risks flattening out the specificity of diverse struggles to unravel colonial power relations and confront postcolonial legacies. Nevertheless, because of the close relationship between images and projects of colonization and because of (especially) the camera’s use as an instrument of anticolonial and postcolonial struggles for dignity, rights, and reparation, the course uses decolonization as a broad framework for thinking through the politics embedded in and effected through especially anthropology’s and visual and media studies’ engagements with photography in particular and images more broadly over the past several decades.
Evaluation:
Rooted in both theory and ethnographic exploration, the course demands active student participation and willingness to apply concepts and theories to individual research projects. Students are asked to come to class prepared to deeply engage with assigned readings, group exercises, and a mini-ethnography project. Each week 1-2 students will be
responsible for presenting the material in class (guidelines will be provided). The main assignment of the class is an ethnographic exploration of a phenomenon that brings images and decolonization together and allows you to approach your chosen topic from different vantage points. This project will be developed throughout the course, meaning that students will pick a specific visual topic/phenomenon to engage with at the beginning of the semester. Weekly check-ins will occur in each session, allowing students to develop their projects throughout the semester and familiarize themselves with the projects of their fellow students and collectively build up understandings of forms of knowing and studying images. The project will culminate in a written report (2000 words) but can include images and other audiovisual materials to illustrate main points.
The final grade will be based on the following assignments:
Participation 10%
In-class presentation(s) on course readings 15%
Attendance of Dahomey & Moodle assignment 15%
1 presentation on decolonizing project 15%
1 final paper on decolonizing project 45%
The assignments will be posted on Moodle.
Information:
Prof. Patricia Spyer’s office hours: on appointment by email
Time:
TA: Danishwara Nathaniel. Office hours: Tue 14:00 - 16:00
Email by appointment.
- Teacher: Nathaniel Danishwara
- Teacher: Patricia Spyer