Visual culture and everyday postal practices in the era of modernism

general courses

Classroom

At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the telegraph, telephone

and cinematograph already existed, but – contrary to

popular approach of media studies – the significance of these

„inventions“ in everyday life was minimal. Real life – individual

and social – took place "in" and "thanks to" the analog NETWORK

of postal communication, with its massive usage of photographic

postcards.

The course will be based on archival materials from the era (mainly

French). I believe that their analysis will allow for a significant

"reconfiguration" of many aspects of "everyday modernism",

especially the visual practices characteristic of this era.

At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the telegraph, telephone

and cinematograph already existed, but – contrary to

popular approach of media studies – the significance of these

„inventions“ in everyday life was minimal. Real life – individual

and social – took place "in" and "thanks to" the analog NETWORK

of postal communication, with its massive usage of photographic

postcards.

The course will be based on archival materials from the era (mainly

French). I believe that their analysis will allow for a significant

"reconfiguration" of many aspects of "everyday modernism",

especially the visual practices characteristic of this era.

We will discuss, among others, popular genres of postal

publications of the time (in the following decades, they were

replaced by film): multi-episode, sometimes consisting of several

dozen cards, photo-reports from current events; staged in the studio,

also multi-episode photo-stories on various topics. It should be

emphasized, however, that the main research objective of the course

will be to examine not the publications themselves, but above all

the real ways of using them by users of the "network" (as Michel de

Certeau would say: their "secondary production"). Other areas of

postal practices will be analysed in a similar manner. One of them

is the Mail Art practiced daily at that time, consisting of e.g.,

personalization of the pictoral page of the postcards sent.

– Małgorzata Baranowska, Posłaniec uczuć, Warszawa 2003.

– Paweł Banaś, Orbis pictus. Świat dawnej karty pocztowej, Wydawnictwo

Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego, Wrocław 2005

– Michel de Certeau, Wynaleźć codzienność. Sztuki działania, przeł.

Katarzyna Thiel-Jańczuk, Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego,

Kraków 2008

– Rafał Drozdowski, Wokół społecznych badań nad codziennością, w: Życie

codzienne [w] archiwum, Poznań 1019.

– Wojciech Michera, „Cras leges”. Pocztowe jutro, „Konteksty” 2022, nr 1–2.

– Wojciech Michera, Brakujące ogniwo w historii modernizmu: poczta,

„Konteksty” 2022, nr 3

– Aline Ripert, Claude Frère, La carte postale, son histoire, sa fonction sociale,

CNRS Éditions, Paris 1983 (2001)

– Naomi Schor, Cartes Postales: Representing Paris 1900, „Critical Inquiry”

1992, t. 18, nr 2

– David Scott, European Stamp Design. A Semiotic Approach To Designing

Messages, Academy Editions, London 1995

– Zef Segal, Postal Communication as a Social Network, [w:] tenże, The Political

Fragmentation of Germany, Palgrave MacMilan 2019

The graduate knows and understands selected methodologies of cultural

studies, cognitive strategies and applied research methods to an advanced

degree; methods of analysis and interpretation of cultural practices and

texts; selected trends and tools in the history of visual arts and film. The

graduate is able to interpret the collected material, taking into account the

historical, social and political context; use research methodology and tools

of the humanities;