Sensing Place: Photography as Inquiry

Readings

Listed in the table below are required reading (textual) and looking (visual) assignments for each class session.

One principal text is required for this course, and is referenced in the required readings:

[S1] = Spirn, Anne Whiston. The Language of Landscape. Yale University Press, 2000. ISBN: 9780300082944.

Other required reading assignments often are taken from the following:

[S2] = Spirn, Anne Whiston. The Eye is a Door: Photography and the Art of Visual Thinking. (forthcoming)

Further readings (PDF), organized by topic, are also available, as well as a recommended reading list (PDF) that includes additional references and serves as a general bibliography for the course.

WEEK #	TOPICS	READINGS AND LOOKINGS
1	Reading and Telling Landscape	Required Reading [S1] pp. 3–81.
2	Lights of Day, in Season, in Place I	Required Readings [S2] “Prologue: Earth Shadow,” “The Craft the Subject Demands,” and “Lights of Day, in Season, in Place.” Rowell, Galen. Mountain Light: In Search of the Dynamic Landscape. Sierra Club Books, 1986, pp. 4–9, 38–43, 58–67, and 73–94. ISBN: 9780685135679. Meyerowitz, Joel. Foreword in La natura delle città (The Nature of Cities). Federico Motta Editore, 1995. ISBN: 9788871790954. Required Lookings ———. Selected images from La natura delle città (The Nature of Cities). Federico Motta Editore, 1995. ISBN: 9788871790954. ———. Selected images from Aftermath: World Trade Center Archive. Phaidon Press, 2006. ISBN: 9780714846552.
3	Lights of Day, in Season, in Place II	Required Readings [S2] “Knowing Where to Stand.” Rowell, Galen. Mountain Light: In Search of the Dynamic Landscape. Sierra Club Books, 1986, pp. 182–219. ISBN: 9780685135679. Required Looking Misrach, Richard. Golden Gate. Aperture, 2012. ISBN: 9781597112031.
4	Workshop on Photoshop and Web Authoring	No reading or looking assignments
5	Significant Detail I: Elements of Landscape Language in the Context of Place	Required Readings [S1] pp. 85–167. [S2] “Knowing Where to Stand,” “What Color Tells,” and “Significant Detail.” Required Lookings Szarkowski, John. Atget. Museum of Modern Art, 2000. ISBN: 9780935112566. Spirn, Anne Whiston. Daring to Look: Dorothea Lange’s Photographs and Reports from the Field. University of Chicago Press, 2008. Deal, Joe. Southern California Photographs 1976-1986. University of New Mexico Press, 1992. ISBN: 9780826313355. Vergara, Camilo Jose. The New American Ghetto. Rutgers, 1995. ISBN: 9780813522098.
6	Significant Detail II	Required Reading [S1] pp. 168–88.
7	Landscape Poetics I	Required Readings [S1] pp. 216–39. Welty, Eudora. “Livvie.” In The Wide Net and Other Stories. Harcout Brace and World, 1943. Required Lookings Welty, Eudora. One Time, One Place: Mississippi in the Depression. University Press of Mississippi, 1996. ISBN: 9780878058662. Meyerowitz, Joel. St. Louis and the Arch. Little Brown and Company, 1981. ISBN: 9780316809023. Sternfeld, Joel. American Prospects. Crown, 1987. ISBN: 9780812916591.
8	Landscape Poetics II	Required Reading [S1] pp. 240–65.
9	Landscape Narratives I: Singles, Pairs, Series, and Sequences	Required Readings Lyons, Nathan. “The Photographic Sequence,” and “Sequential Considerations.” In Nathan Lyons: Selected Essays, Lectures, and Interviews. University of Texas Press, 2012. ISBN: 9780292737716. Berger, Paul, Leroy Searle, and Douglas Wadden. Radical Rational Space Time: Idea Networks in Photography. Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, 1983. ISBN: 9780935558104. Required Lookings Lubben, Kristen, ed. Magnum Contact Sheets. Thames and Hudson, 2011. ISBN: 9780500543993. Lange, Dorothea, and Paul S. Taylor. American Exodus: A record of human erosion. Reynal & Hitchcock, 1939. Smith, Eugene W., and Aileen M. Smith. Minamata. Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1975. ISBN: 9780030136368. Lyons, Nathan. Notations in Passing. MIT Press, 1974. ISBN: 9780262620284. [Preview with Google Books]
10	Landscape Narratives II (Meetings with individual students during this class session.)	Required Readings [S1] pp. 267–72. [S2] “What Is There, Hidden and Real.”
11	Storytelling: Words and Images I	Required Readings Lange, Dorothea, and Pirkle Jones. “Death of a Valley.” Aperture 8, no.3 (1960). DeCarava, Roy, and Langston Hughes. The Sweet Flypaper of Life. Hill and Wang, 1967. Lyons, Nathan. Riding First Class on the Titanic. MIT Press, 2000. ISBN: 9780262621359. Horn, Roni. Another Water: The River Thames, for Example. Steidl, 2011. ISBN: 9783869303185. Required Lookings 11.309J photo essays and selected websites
12	Storytelling: Words and Images II (Meetings with individual students during this class session.)	No reading or looking assignments
13–14	Review of Photo Essays in Online Galleries	No reading or looking assignments
15	Photography as Inquiry	Required Readings [S2] “Photography and the Art of Visual Thinking,” and “The Eye Is a Door.” Bateson, Gregory, and Margaret Mead. Balinese Character: A Photographic Analysis. New York Academy of Sciences, 1942. MacLean, Alex S. “Overview: The Houston Photographs of Alex S. MacLean.” Cite: The Architecture and Design Review of Houston 48 (2000): 14–39. Frayling, Christopher. “Research in Art and Design.” Royal College of Art Research Papers 1, no. 1 (1993). Required Lookings Bateson, Gregory, and Margaret Mead. Balinese Character: A Photographic Analysis. New York Academy of Sciences, 1942. Corner, James, and Alex S. MacLean. Taking Measures Across the American Landscape. Yale University Press, 1996. ISBN: 9780300086966.