Course Description

The course will provide an introduction to anthropological theories of visual communication and to the history of anthropological representations of culture through visual media. The goals of the course are: to understand the ways in which visual representation is used within anthropology to express anthropological ideas; to consider the ethics and issues arising from the representation of living persons in visual media as well as their responses; and to gain practical experience doing visual anthropology. We will examine how visual representation in anthropology has moved away from its earlier role as simple illustration towards one in which new realities are actively created. We will consider in particular how images convey anthropological meaning in fundamentally different ways from text.