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Ever since the advent of photography at the turn of the 19th century, visual culture has profoundly shaped our perceptions of ‘reality’. Having said that, it is not a leap to conclude that images are an important structuring device of social realities and thus strongly influence the ways in which we make sense of the world. However, the wide-spread belief that seeing is knowing often forestalls that we become cognizant of the ways in which images are always already constructed, framed, and thus the products of – and at the same time open to – a multitude of interpretations. It is, however, due to this intertwining of the visual with the notion of ‚reality‘, that visual media is often made use of to create, perpetuate and consolidate political and cultural hegemony. At the same time, though, visual text serves as an important means of resistance. In this seminar, we will look at visual representations of Blackness as a case in point to explore how those representations oscillate between the reproduction of stereotypical images and the efforts of Black producers of visual culture to challenge those portraits by creating a vast array of counter images. In doing so, we will also pay attention to the way in which the images conveyed operate at the intersections of various identity categories such as race, gender, and class.
Visual material will be made available either digitally or by way of in-class screenings, secondary texts will be provided as a reader in the beginning of the semester. |
