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SoSe 14: Visuals and Visibility in African American History

Elisabeth Engel

Kommentar

Visuals and Visibility in African American History Thinking about African American history often brings to mind certain images. We may picture slave plantations, the racial violence of the Ku-Klux clan, the banana-skirt of Josephine Baker or Malcom X’s gun. That we have such images at hand suggests that visuals play a distinct role in both the making and the perception of historical events. In this class, we will survey African American history through the lenses of cameras that have eyed black bodies since the invention of photography in the early 19th century.
Considering the paradigms and conventions of black self-representation as well as of representations others have made of blackness, the class aims to approach African American history as a history of visibility. It seeks to use visibility as a way to critically interrogate the ways in which visualizations reflect racial power-relations in the U.S. The class will familiarize students with the history of technology, theories of visual culture, with historical methods for the analysis of visual source material.
Schließen

12 Termine

Regelmäßige Termine der Lehrveranstaltung

Do, 08:30 - 10:00 12 Termine

Do, 17.04.2014 08:30 - 10:00

Dozenten:
Elisabeth Engel