Photography and Memory
CWL 581
Tuesdays 11:30-1:20 243 Armory
Fall 2008
Professor Brett Kaplan
bakaplan@illinois.edu; 3123 FLB
This course explores diverse aspects of photography and memory from a variety of
literary, artistic, and theoretical perspectives. Students will be invited to write on
themes broadly arrayed within the rubric of the course. Readings include: Cotton, The
Photograph as Contemporary Art; Barthes, Camera Lucida; Proust, Swann’s Way (excerpt);
Sontag, On Photography; Pinney (ed.), Photography’s Other Histories; Nabokov, Speak,
Memory; Sebald, Austerlitz.
Books on reserve include: Batchen, Burning with Desire; Elkins (ed), Photography Theory;
Harris and Ruggles (ed), Sites Unseen; Kuhn and McAllistair, Locating Memory; and
other works.
Week 1, Tuesday August 26
Introduction
Week 2, Tuesday September 2
Cotton, The Photograph as Contemporary Art, pp. 7-112
Week 3, Tuesday September 9
Cotton, The Photograph as Contemporary Art, pp. 115-218
Week 4, Tuesday September 16
Barthes, Camera Lucida
Week 5, Tuesday September 23
Proust, Swann’s Way pp 1-116
Week 6, Tuesday September 30
Sontag, On Photography
Week 7, Tuesday October 7
Pinney, ed., Introduction, pp. 1-14, When is a Photograph worth a Thousand
Words?, pp. 40-52, The Making of Professional ‘Savages’, pp. 55-84
Week 8, Tuesday October 14
Nabokov, Speak Memory, pp. 9-139
Week 9, Tuesday October 21
Nabokov, Speak Memory, pp. 141-310; One page description of final paper due
Week 10, Tuesday October 28
Pinney, ed., The Japanese Colonial Eye, pp. 100-118; Supple Bodies, pp. 146-169;
Notes from the Surface of the Image, pp. 202-220; Yoruba Photography, pp. 240-260
Week 11, Tuesday November 4
From Harris and Ruggles, ed., Sites Unseen, Mitchell and Jay pp. 33-60 (handout, book
on reserve in library)
Week 12, Tuesday November 11
From Kuhn and McAllister, eds, Locating Memory, Hirsch and Spitzer “There Never
was a Camp Here,” pp. 135-154; Zaslove and Lowry, Talking Through, pp. 247-267,
(handout, book on reserve in library)
Week 13, Tuesday November 18
Student Presentations
Thanksgiving Vacation
Week 14, Tuesday December 2
Sebald, Austerlitz, 3-129
Student Presentations
Week 15, Tuesday December 9
Sebald, Austerlitz, 130-298
Student Presentations
Final papers due December 12; please include a stamped, self-addressed envelope so
I can send papers back to you.