ARTH 564
Photography in/of Middle East Spring 2013
Division I
This is not the current course catalog

Since its inception, photography has been globally disseminated but locally inflected, serving myriad documentary and expressive purposes in diverse visual cultures. This is nowhere more true than in the Middle East, where the powers and pleasures of the medium have been valued by colonial forces, indigenous populations, photojournalists and artists. The resulting images manifest, extend and contest complex traditions of representation that vary from place to place, Constantinople, the Holy Land, Egypt, and Persia each sustaining different tropes and modes of production. We will proceed accordingly, concentrating on individual photographers and centers of image-making, operating across the spectrum of visuality from creation to reception. Along the way, we will address the burdens and risks of image-making: What work do photographs do and how do they perform this labor? Who resists and who benefits? Students will track photography in/of particular locales over time to appreciate diverse renderings of the Middle East as aspects of global visual culture.