Instructor: Jon Wagner, College of Education
Description: Portraits of people have been made since antiquity, but digital media have created new portraiture opportunities, challenges and applications. What can we learn from these new forms of portraiture about our changing culture and social life? In what ways do new media portraits extend or challenge traditional portrait practices? In what ways do they reflect different concepts of person, self and society? And why should we care?
In this course we will explore different kinds of portraits and how they both reflect and shape ideas about what it means to be a person. We’ll look in particular at portraits that link images, sound and text as an integrated multi-media document. In addition to examples from the fine arts, we’ll look at family photographs, online social networking sites, traditional school pictures, wedding books, obituaries, personal marketing and promotional materials, college applications, security and surveillance strategies, political advocacy campaigns, personal belongings and household decorations. Seminar discussions will provide an opportunity to examine how different forms of portraiture fit or don’t fit with these different applications. We will also explore the implications of new media for producing and distributing portraits in ways that range from the personal, individual, private or even secretive to approaches that are public, collaborative, institutional or commercial.Format: Students enrolled in this course will become familiar with the questions and issues noted above. They will develop a greater appreciation for how text, visual and audio documents can be used to depict individuals and groups and for how documents of this sort both reflect and shape social life. Through hands-on assignments, students will also learn more about the craft of new media portraiture and its distinctive challenges and opportunities.
The course meets for two hours each week for 9 weeks. Seminars will combine mini-lectures and presentations by the instructor with in-class discussions of readings, photographs, videotape viewing, audio recordings, student presentations and short writing assignments. Assigned readings will include one to two articles or selections each week from literature, journalism, anthropology, sociology, documentary filmmaking, documentary studies, media studies and the arts.
Students are expected come to class prepared to discuss course readings. Working in pairs, teams and individually, students will prepare two portraits (one will be an “assisted” self-portrait) in which they make use of at least two different materials--e.g. text, still photographs, video recordings, or audio recordings. Each student will also write an end-of-term commentary (1500 words max) that examines portraits prepared by other students in terms of one or more of the course readings. Grading: Grades will reflect 25% for each of the two portrait assignments, 25% for the end-of-term written commentary, and 25% on classroom participation.About the Instructor: Jon Wagner is a professor in the School of Education. His research interests include school organization and reform, children's material culture, and image-based research. Current projects include a study of how children and adults view the material culture of children in the home and in school and studies of two alternative high schools that emphasize "problem-based learning." Professor Wagner is past President of the International Visual Sociology Association and was the Founding Image Editor of Contexts magazine.