American Studies 135a, Fall 2018
Photography and American Culture
Professor: Mark Feeney
(617) 929-8590, Brown 312,
Office hours: by appointment
"Photography then seemed new and exciting, and all America, which I regarded with mystery and reverence, lay before me.”
Danny Lyon
Requirements: Two papers of 3-5 pages, a third of 7-10 pages -- one a close description/analysis of a single photograph of any sort, another of a Farm Security Administration/Office of War information photograph; the third on an individual photographer or incident, theme, or person in American history as she/he/it has been seen through photography. There are also occasional unannounced quizzes and a take-home final.
Each week has an online gallery ofpertinent images. This assigned looking goes along with the assigned reading.
No prior knowledge of photography or photographic history– or of America and American history -- is assumed. The course is meant to be equally interesting (and illuminating) to American Studies majors, art history majors, or any other kind of majors. All that is needed are curiosity about this country and a willingness to look searchingly and interestedly at images.
Grading: shorter papers 15% each; longer paper, 30%; class participation, 20%; quizzes, 10%; take-home exam, 10%. Students who have not participated during class are encouraged either to speak afterwards with the instructor or email him observations, afterthoughts, and/or proposed topics for discussion.
Students are expected to arrive on time and pick up after themselves (janitors are people, too). Eating and drinking during class are permissible, so long as they don’t prove a distraction. All personal electronic devices should be turned off. Yes, that’s right, all personal electronic devices are to be turned off.
There will be a ten-minute break at the middle of class, around eight o’clock.
Course goals: To examine how photography has (and has not) shaped our understanding of certain key themes and issues in American history and culture -- and how American history and culture have (and have not) done the same to photography. Along the way, students should gain an added appreciation for photography as both a documentary and aesthetic enterprise. An additional aim is that they get excited about photography and, even more important, about American culture in all its rich variousness and perplexity.
Note: “Photographers discussed” are those with work given extensive attention; individual images from other photographers will be considered for each class as well.Brackets indicate a foreign photographer included because of a formative or comparative relationship to the aspect of photography under discussion that week.
Sept. 4
Beginning (course introduction, early photography)
Photographers: Southworth & Hawes [Nadar, William Henry Fox Talbot,
Julia Margaret Cameron]
Sept. 18
Believing (religion) and Evoking (American icons)
Reading: Stephen Shore, The Nature of Photographs; Roy Stryker, “The FSA Collection of Photographs”; Paul Taylor,
“Migrant Mother: 1936”
Photographers and government agency: Paul Strand, Dorothea Lange, Ansel Adams, Farm Security Administration (
Oct. 2
Arriving (immigration) and Gathering (cities)
Reading: Henry James, The American Scene, excerpts; Emma Lazarus, “The New Colossus”; Elizabeth Bishop, “Invitation to Miss Marianne Moore”; Weegee, Naked City; Bruce Davidson, introduction,Subway
Photographers: Jacob Riis, Berenice Abbott, Weegee, André Kertész, Garry Winogrand, Bruce Davidson [Eugène Atget]
Oct. 9
Dividing (race)
Reading: Ralph Ellison, prologue to Invisible Man; Albert Murray, “The Omni-Americans”; Philip Levine, “The Sweetness of Bobby Hefka”
Photographers: Gertrude Käsebier, Frances Benjamin Johnston, Edward S. Curtis, Toyo Miyatake, Charles “Teenie” Harris
Oct. 16
Exploring I (American boundaries, without)
Reading: Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Nature,” excerpt; Henry David Thoreau, “Walking”; Edward Abbey, “Polemic: Industrial Tourism and the National Parks,”
from Desert Solitaire
Photographers: Carleton Watkins, Timothy O’Sullivan, William Henry Jackson, Eliot Porter, Robert Adams
First paper due
Oct. 23
Exploring II (American boundaries, within)
Reading: Allen Ginsberg, “Howl”; Joan Didion, “Slouching Towards Bethlehem”
Photographers: Minor White, Jerry Uelsmann, Duane Michals, E. J. Bellocq, Diane Arbus, Robert Mapplethorpe, Cindy Sherman
Oct. 30
Working (labor) and Having (affluence)
Reading: Walt Whitman, “A Song for Occupations”; Theodore Dreiser, Sister Carrie, chapter three; Philip Levine, “What Work Is”; John Cheever, “The Swimmer”
Photographers: Lewis Hine, Bill Owen [Bill Brandt,
August Sander, Sebastiao Salgado]
Nov. 6
Making I (technology)
Photographers and inventor: Eadweard Muybridge, Charles Sheeler, Harold Edgerton [Bernd and Hilla Becher, Edward Burtynsky]; Edwin Land
Reading: Henry Adams, “The Dynamo and the Virgin,” from The Education of Henry Adams; Hart Crane, “To Brooklyn Bridge”; Tom Wolfe, “The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby”
Nov. 13
Making II (art)
Reading: Carl Sandburg and Edward Steichen The Family of Man; William Eggleston, William Eggleston’s Guide
Photographers and institutions: Alfred Stieglitz,Edward Steichen, Edward Weston, Harry Callahan, William Eggleston [Peter Henry Emerson]
Second paper due
Nov. 20
Fighting (war)
Reading: Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage;; Mark Feeney, “Shooting war”
Photographers: Mathew Brady, Robert Capa, David Douglas Duncan, James Nachtwey [Roger Fenton; Larry Burrows, Don McCullin]
Nov. 27
Buying (amateur photography) and Selling (advertising, fashion, glamour)
Reading: Mark Feeney, “Standard ways of seeing” and “Young, old, banker, firefighter: the democratization of death”
Photographers, etc.: George Eastman, Irving Penn; RichardAvedon, Annie Leibovitz, Life magazine, Zapruder film, New York Times “Portraits of Grief,” Abu Ghraib
Dec. 4
Surpassing (toward a subversive American heroic)
Reading: James Agee, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, excerpts; Walker Evans, American Photographs; Robert Frank, The Americans;
Mark Feeney, “He changed the way we look at US”
Photographers: Walker Evans, the Farm Security Administration (again),
Robert Frank
Dec. 11
Summarizing
Reading: Wright Morris, “In Our Image”
Third paper due; take-home final given
DISABILITY AND ILLNESSES: Every reasonable attempt will be made to insure the full participation of every student in this class. If you are a student with a documented disability at Brandeis University and wish to have a reasonable accommodation made for you in this class, please see me immediately. Please keep in mind that reasonable accommodations cannot be provided retroactively. Should a problem arise in the course of the semester, such as illness or family emergency, inform me of it as soon as possible.
ACADEMIC INTEGRITY: You are expected to be honest in all of your academic work. The university policy on academic honesty is distributed annually in the Rights and Responsibilities handbook. Instances of alleged dishonesty will be forwarded to the Office of Campus Life for referral to the Student Judicial System. Potential sanctions include failure in the course and suspension from the University. If you have any questions about any of this, please ask.
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