Freshman Seminar
Spring 2016
Professor Victoria Olsen
Office: rm 415, 411 Lafayette
FRSEM-UA 559: The Rise of the Visual
Tuesday 9:30-12PM
Classroom: 194 Mercer, room 208
This course asks you to investigate the role of the visual in culture since the
invention of photography. For over a hundred years images have been mechanically
reproduced and available to a mass public; now the proliferation of images through
the internet, mass media, and surveillance cameras has made them more and more
complicated to understand or manipulate. Throughout the course we’ll focus on the
relationship between text and image, continually circling back to several key
questions: What are we looking at? What does it mean to see it this way? How can
we speak or write about what we see? And why are we looking in the first place?
Texts will range across disciplines as well as formats. Assignments will include oral
reports on the readings as well as regular short written assignments that culminate
in a 8-10 pp. research paper that evaluates the critical reception of a contemporary
visual exhibition, film, or performance.
Required Texts (available at the bookstore)
Brian Selznick. The Invention of Hugo Cabret (2007)
All other readings are available as excerpts on Google Classroom under the date
they are due. You will need to join the course site and enable notifications to keep
up with the assignments. Some weeks you will also need to view a feature-length
film in advance of class. These viewings are on the syllabus and I will help you find
the films on Netflix or put them on reserve at the Avery Fisher Center in Bobst.
Class Meetings
Week One: January 26
Writing the Image: Ekphrasis and the challenge of describing the visual in words.
Read in class: Homer’s famous description of Achilles’ shield, Auden’s poem by the
same name, and Keats’s “Ode to a Grecian Urn.”(about 3 pp total) In class we’ll write
150-word audio-scripts for an image.
Sign up to do a close reading of an excerpt from one required text (see list and dates
below). NOTE: All written assignments should be uploaded to Google
Classroom by the end of the day they are due, even if you are absent from
class. ALSO start reading Selznick early! It’s 500 pages long (though not all
text)!
Week Two: February 2
Visit Oceans of Images: New Photography at MoMA.
Hand in Assignment #1: Describe one image from the exhibit and evaluate its
audio, wall, and/or catalogue text (2 pp.)
Olsen/Visual syllabus, spring 2016
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Week Three: February 9
Defining the Human: Read excerpts from Darwin’s “The Expression of Emotions,”
illustrated with photographs (about 5 pp). In class view 19th century photographs of
the insane and criminals alongside the website Humans of New York.
Week Four: February 16
Preserving the Past: Read Woolf’s “On Cinema” and some of Barthes’s Camera
Lucida (about 10 pp total). In class view selections of Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Hand in
Assignment #2: 2-3 possible choices for final paper: what interests you about
each possible current exhibition or film? What do you want to figure out about
it? Full assignment details on Google Classroom. (2-3 pp)
Week Five: February 23
Visualizing Time: Read Selznick’s graphic novel The Invention of Hugo Cabret (about
500 pp). View Scorsese’s Hugo (in advance) and selections of Melies films (in class).
Week Six: March 1
Ethics of Seeing, Part I: Read Sontag’s “Fascinating Fascism” and responses (abut 20
pp total). In class view selection of Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will. Hand in
Assignment #3: prospectus for final paper (2-3 pp).
Week Seven: March 8
Ethics of Seeing, Part II: Read Levi-Strauss’s “The Documentary Debate” (about 5 pp.
total). In class view selections from Salgado’s Uncertain Grace and Wenders’s Salt of
the Earth. Visit Steve McCurry exhibit at Rubin Museum and hand in Assignment
#4: response paper (2-3 pp).
[Winter Break. No class.]
Week Eight: March 22
Viewing War: Read Hershey’s “Hiroshima” and Wechsler’s “Valkyries Over Iraq”
(about 15 pp. total) In class view selections from the films Hiroshima Mon Amour,
Apocalypse Now, and Jarhead.
Week Nine: March 29
Watching Others: Read Mulvey’s “Visual Pleasure…” and Foucault’s “Panopticism”
(about 15 pp. total) In class view excerpts from Ai Wei Wei: Never Sorry, Citizen Four,
and the photographic installations of Sophie Calle.
Hand in Assignment #5: an annotated bibliography for final paper (2-3 pp.)
Week Ten: April 5
Looking Back: Read Spivak’s “Can the Subaltern Speak?” (about 10 pp. total) In class
view photographs by Seydou Keita and portraits by Kehinde Wiley.
Week Eleven: April 12
Olsen/Visual syllabus, spring 2016
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Translating Texts: Read Susan Orleans’s “Orchid Thief” (about 8 pp. total) and view
Spike Jonze’s Adaptation.
Week Twelve: April 19
Workshop/Conferences
Hand in first draft of 8-10 pp research paper. In class peer-editing and individual
conferences with me. Please note that peer-editing is a required and graded part of
this course. Consider what is clear or confusing in your partner’s paper, where you
would like more detail as a reader or less detail. If you find proofreading mistakes
you can note them but the point of reading a first draft is to clarify the argument in a
second draft, not to polish the surface.
Week Thirteen: April 26
Managing Visual Overload. Read Olivia Laing’s “The Future of Loneliness” (about 8
pp. total).
Week Fourteen: May 3
Hand in 8-10 pp. final research paper.
Evaluations and meta letter.
Grading
Good attendance and completion of all assignments are required to pass the course.
Your final grade will be based on the five short Assignments (6 points each for
30%), in-class presentation on a reading (20%), final paper (30%), and
participation in class discussions (10%) and peer editing (10%).
Plagiarism is a serious offense that must be reported to the university. Essays that
show evidence of plagiarism will first be subject to a serious conversation between
teacher and student: you should always be able to show how you arrived at an idea
or a particular wording, using other cited texts, drafts, exercises, or notes. If you are
not sure what constitutes plagiarism, or how to properly cite your sources, consult
with me. Be safe, not sorry! Essays that are proven to include plagiarized material
automatically receive an F.
Please notify me in advance of absences whenever possible and email me the
assignment on time, unless you receive an extension from me. I will not read late
assignments unless approved in advance. Repeated absences will affect your
learning and may result in failing the course. I will excuse unavoidable absences if
they are documented in writing by a doctor or another professional. Absences affect
your learning and your course grade. You are responsible for all deadlines and the
material covered in any classes you miss. Persistent lateness is not acceptable and
will count as an absence.
Keep the Writing Center in mind for additional feedback on your writing. With
about a week’s notice, you can sign up for a 45-minute individual session to go over
Olsen/Visual syllabus, spring 2016
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your written assignments (drafts or revisions) with an EWP instructor. You can
make appointments online at https://nyu.mywconline.com/ or drop in to the Center
at 411 Lafayette, 4th floor, or call (212) 998-8866. Slots do tend to fill up quickly, so
plan in advance if possible, though there are sometimes cancellations.
Please feel free to contact me by email or by appointment with any questions
you may have. I can be reached at victoria.olsen@nyu.edu.
Oral report options (sign up first day of class)
For each topic please bring in a short selection of the reading (about a paragraph)
and lead discussion about it in class. That means identifying themes that relate it to
our other readings and viewings and preparing discussion questions for your peers.
How does your excerpt illuminate the whole of your text? Expect to have about 15
minutes of class time.
February 9: Darwin’s Expression of Emotions
February 16: Woolf’s “On Cinema”
February 16: Barthes’s Camera Lucida
February 23: Selznick’s The Invention of Hugo Cabret (2 students)
March 1: Sontag’s “Fascinating Fascism”
March 1: responses to Sontag (TBD)
March 8: Levi-Strauss’s “The Documentary Debate”
March 22: Hershey’s “Hiroshima”
March 22: Wechsler’s “Valkyries Over Iraq”
March 29: Mulvey’s “Visual Pleasure…”
March 29: Foucault’s “Panopticism”
April 5: Spivak’s “Can the Subaltern Speak?”
April 12: Susan Orleans’s “Orchid Thief”
April 26: Olivia Laing’s “The Future of Loneliness”