ESSAY TWO: WAYS OF SEEING
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Due:
In print, beginning of class on Tuesday, February 26.
Deadline for Email Feedback:
(9:30 a.m.) Sunday, February 24
Deadline for Writing Center Visit:
Monday, February 25
Late Work:
Paper will be docked one full letter grade per class period late.
Assignment: Write a 4-6 page, double-spaced essay founded on one of the prompts below. The essay should be
written as a self-contained piece, which means that a reader from outside of our classroom should be able to fully
understand the message being conveyed. This requires attention to background and context for the theorists, theories,
and any additional sources. All sources should be documented in MLA. While limited use of “I” statements is
acceptable, public examples and secondary sources should be privileged over the personal; the only exception is the
afterward of Prompt 3. Writing Assistance Center visit is required; failure to participate will result in an
automatic deduction of 10 points. Write your prompt choice on your paper before submission.
1. Baudrillard and Berger both explore how our relationship with the image has changed in the age of mechanical
reproduction. One might argue that we have become a culture that worships the image, for it is always with us: on our
computers, our TVs, our cell phones, in advertisements that fill our magazines and line our highways on billboards…
While Baudrillard laments—rages, even—against the access to the public psyche that current technology
demands, arguing that the Culture Industry uses it to manipulate images/signs in order to produce a passive mass
consciousness, Berger argues that there may be benefits to this technology in that the art of the past—and thus
history—is now available to the masses rather than the privileged few. (Baudrillard concedes to something similar:
the CI’s democratization of society.) However, Berger warns, art also necessarily loses its authority and authenticity
through reproduction, and the way art is reproduced can be used to sway viewers to a certain feeling or reading.
In a well-developed, analytical essay, explore the implications of authenticity, value, and meaning in the
age of mechanical reproduction. You might choose to focus on art and the image specifically, or broaden your
discussion to encompass identity politics. Use sufficient textual evidence to support your argument.
2. Using Berger and/or Baudrillard, use one of the following quotes as inspiration for a persuasive essay on
identity, morality, or postmodern culture. Use sufficient textual evidence to support your argument.
“We live in a world where there is more and more information, and less and less meaning.”
--Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation
“It is objects which today observe our being born, which accompany our death…and which survive us.”
--Baudrillard, The System of Objects
3. Berger asks us to consider, “To whom does the meaning of the art of the past properly belong? To those who can
apply it to their own lives, or to a cultural hierarchy of relic specialists?” For this assignment, you will act as if the
meaning of the art of the past belongs to you. Using a large-format book of reproductions in the library, or an
accredited museum website, select a painting you would like to write about, one whose meaning you can articulate to
others. This painting should be pre-1950. Write a 2-3 page analysis, offering a way for the reader to “see” the
painting through your eyes. How does the meaning of the piece from the past belong to you?
Once you have written the essay, craft a (minimum) 2-page afterward, addressing the following; be sure to
incorporate Berger:
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What expectations about art are evident in your reading?
What other approaches might have been used for this reading?
What are the disadvantages of your approach?
What might be characterized as mystification in your reading?
As you look back over the essay, what does your analysis have to do with your position in “history?”