The American Photobook

elective courses

Classroom

This course will offer a look at the establishment of the American photography book as successful art form and mainstay of the American publishing world. In the class we will identify the crucial role of support that American literary figures often gave in this establishment, to lend photography projects an air of respectability and seriousness, when they were seen as anything but. We will also see how, as the photography book became an established genre, photographers started to explore the possibilities that literature and vernacular writing offered to expand the meaning of their work.

The course will focus on photography books that combine writing and photography in new ways, in two theme clusters, “the American home” and “the American landscape”. Projects that we look at in the course include Larry Sultan’s Pictures from Home, Carrie Mae Weems's The Kitchen Table Series, Alec Soth’s Niagara and Roy McCarava’s The Sweetflypaper of Life.

This course will offer a look at the establishment of the American photography book as successful art form and mainstay of the American publishing world. In the class we will identify the crucial role of support that American literary figures often gave in this establishment, to lend photography projects an air of respectability and seriousness, when they were seen as anything but. We will also see how, as the photography book became an established genre, photographers started to explore the possibilities that literature and vernacular writing offered to expand the meaning of their work.

The course will focus on photography books that combine writing and photography in new ways, in two theme clusters, “the American home” and “the American landscape”. The seminar identifies Robert Frank’s The Americans (1959) as a form-defining classic that influenced many subsequent photography books. But we will also analyze this classic’s own conditions of emergence, it’s initially failed launch in France (1958) as a book of essays accompanied by photographs as illustrations, the influence of Walker Evans on the book, and indeed Walker Evans attempts at short story and magazine writing as well. It will become clear that American writing and American photography (light-writing) cross-pollinated in interesting ways in the twentieth century, a mixing that found its ultimate form in the photography book.

Projects that we look at in the course include Larry Sultan’s Pictures from Home, Carrie Mae Weems's The Kitchen Table Series, Alec Soth’s Niagara and Roy McCarava’s The Sweet Flypaper of Life. All of them make use of writing in fascinating ways, whether as paratext, archival material, or indeed literary writing by the photographers themselves. When working in the theme clusters ‘Home’ and ‘Landscape’, we will include literary sources from the period (e.g. Raymond Carver, Rachel Kushner) to compare and contrast with the photobooks.

Selected bibliography:

Robert Frank – The Americans (1959)

Susan Sontag – On Photography (1977)

Jim Goldberg – Rich and Poor (1985)

Carrie Mae Weems – The Kitchen Table Series (1990)

Larry Sultan – Pictures from Home (1992)

Miles Orvell – American Photography: Oxford History of Art (2003)

Kristine Potter – Manifest (2018)

Norton Anthology Volume E: American Literature 1945 to the Present (2022)

It is not necessary for the students to purchase all these books, study materials will be made available.

Knowledge:

- Student knows the various ways in which the photography book was used to explore American identity from the postwar period to the present, and the role that American literature played in this exploration.

- Student knows key photographers from this period and the way in which they produced their projects, developed their aesthetic goals, and were both attracted to and repelled by words in writing as a crutch to develop their work on.

- Student knows the significant role that American literary figures played in establishing the photobook as a serious art genre.

Skills:

- Student can reflect on how the photobook originated as a cultural construct in the second half of the 20th century and how it was subsequently revised/developed/critiqued by the photographers we focus on.

- Student can critically asses the aesthetic and cultural value of the photography book in terms of its ability to document the American experience, by identifying the strengths and weaknesses of photo-projects in their ability to represent American culture.

- Student can write a term paper that demonstrates a clear understanding of the course material and that develops a well-argued position on one or several of the photography books discussed in the seminars.

Social competence:

- Student participates in group presentations and can present skillfully in English.

- Student contributes to debates surrounding photographic art in class.

In-class participation – 25 pt

Student presentations – 25 pt

End of term paper – 50 pt

Scale: 100-88/5; 87-73/4; 72-57/3; 56-0/2