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American Photographs

Module description

In September 1938, Walker Evans’ American Photographs opened at MoMA in New York to widespread critical acclaim. Billed as the museum’s ‘first one-person photography exhibition’, the exhibition offered an unprecedented insight into life on the East Coast – its people, its traditions, its architecture. As a portrait of Depression-era America, American Photographs is frequently presented as a milestone in the institutionalisation of photography and vernacular culture more broadly. However, it also forms part of a larger conversation about the relationship between photography and American national identity. Taking its lead from Evans’ exhibition, this module will introduce you to the various ways in which lens-based practices have informed the public perception of “America” since the 1930s. Beginning with the Farm Security Administration and its documentation of rural poverty, you will explore how this pairing has manifested itself throughout the twentieth century and beyond, from the popularity of Life magazine to contemporary protest photography and the Black Lives Matter movement. You will also be invited to reflect upon the broader themes of gender, race, labour and nationhood which these practices evoke.

Module aims - intentions of the module

This module will introduce you to a range of lens-based practices, including street photography, documentary, photojournalism and the photobook, and their place within the broader cultural imaginary of the United States. Through a combination of lectures, seminars and screenings, you will learn how engage with the historical and theoretical stakes of these practices and their accompanying scholarly literature. You will also be taught to assess the strengths and weaknesses of these materials, allowing you to produce assessed outcomes which are well researched and adopt an independent position. On completion of the module, you will have gained a knowledge of the history of lens-based media in the United States and the different ways in which these practices have been produced, distributed and received, both nationally and internationally.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 1. Evaluate the key concepts, methods and debates surrounding lens-based media in the United States, from the 1930s to the present.
• 2. Situate the works discussed on the module within their broader critical/socio-historical contexts.
• 3. Identify some of the ways in which lens-based practices have been used in the (re)construction of American national identity and reflect upon the wider political significance of this gesture.

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 4. Research, present and evaluate a range of lens-based practices in relation to the broader socio-political contexts in which they were conceived, produced and displayed.
• 5. Critically engage with relevant scholarship and use it to discuss a range of C20th/21st visual practices.

ILO: Personal and key skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 6. Demonstrate appropriate research, bibliographical and academic writing skills, and the ability to construct a coherent argument grounded in relevant scholarly literature and/or visual evidence.
• 7. Demonstrate proficiency in information retrieval and analysis.
• 8. Demonstrate an ability to work collaboratively, both orally and in writing, and develop, research and present ideas within a fixed timeframe.

Syllabus plan

Whilst content may vary from year to year, it is expected that the module will cover the following:

• Documentary Photography and the FSA
• The Workers Film & Photo League
• Life Magazine
• The Photobook
• Photographic Formalism
• Street Photography
• Critical Realism
• Reproductive Rights on Film
• Humanitarian Documentary
• Community Media and Police Brutality
• Indigenous Futurism

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Formative assessment

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Details of summative assessment

Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)

Re-assessment notes

Deferral: If you miss an assessment for certificated reasons judged acceptable by the Mitigation Committee, you will normally be either deferred in the assessment or an extension may be granted. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of deferral will not be capped and will be treated as it would be if it were your first attempt at the assessment.

Referral: If you have failed the module overall (i.e. a final overall module mark of less than 40%) you will be required to submit a further assessment as necessary. If you are successful on referral, your overall module mark will be capped at 40%.

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

• Aguayo, Angela J. Documentary Resistance: Social Change and Participatory Media. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019.
• Bolton, Richard, ed. The Contest of Meaning: Critical Histories of Photography. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1992.
• Bussard, Katherine A. and Kristen Gresh, eds. LifeMagazine and the Power of Photography. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2020.
• Di Bello, Patrizia, Colette Wilson and Shamoon Zamir, eds. The Photobook: From Talbot to Ruscha and Beyond. London: I.B. Tauris, 2012.
• Eskildsen, Ute. Street & Studio: An Urban History of Photography. London: Tate Publishing, 2008.
• Finnegan, Cara A. Picturing Poverty: Print Culture and FSA Photographs. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 2003.
• Rangan, Pooja. Immediations: The Humanitarian Impulse in Documentary. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2017.
• Ribalta, Jorge, ed. Not Yet: On the Reinvention of Documentary and the Critique of Modernism. Madrid: Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, 2015.
• Stimson, Blake. The Pivot of the World: Photography and its Nation. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2006.
• Tagg, John. The Burden of Representation: Essays on Photographies and Histories. Basingstoke: Macmillan,1988.

Key words search

Photography, United States of America, lens-based media, documentary, national identity