Landscape Photography: Perspective on America

This course traces the history of American landscape photography, focusing on the landscape as a site of contested understandings of American values. From nineteenth-century work by William Henry Jackson in the as yet ‘unsettled’ American west, through Stephen Shore’s icon-rich color panoramas, the way in which the American continent has been captured in photographs has always been a palimpsest rich with American meaning.

The course also engages with late-twentieth-century questions surrounding the landscape, at a time when environmental concerns have become increasingly pressing in both the United States and abroad. The course culminates in our current moment, when American landscape photography engages with the ecopoetics of the anthropocene, for example in the work Domesticated Land by Susan Lipper.

This survey course traces the history of American landscape photography, focusing on the landscape as a site of contested understandings of American values. From nineteenth-century work by William Henry Jackson in the as yet ‘unsettled’ American west, through Stephen Shore’s icon-rich color panoramas, the way in which the American continent has been captured in photographs has always been a palimpsest rich with American meaning.

The course also engages with late-twentieth-century questions surrounding the landscape, at the moment that photographic evidence of “toxic settling ponds, transmission towers, contrails, open pit mines, stalled traffic, sprawling feed lots, and the rest of humanity’s infrastructure” have come to dominate much of the scene, as environmental activist Barry Lopez describes it.

Through landscape photography, American photographers were able to address environmental concerns and, in the case of Robert Adams, the damage being done to the American West. The course culminates in our current moment, when American landscape photography engages with the ecopoetics of the anthropocene, for example in the work Domesticated Land by Susan Lipper and Manifest by Kristine Potter.

Adams, Robert. The New West. 1974.

Lipper, Susan. Domesticated Land. 2018.

Orvell, Miles. American Photography: Oxford History of Art. 2003 (excerpts)

Potter, Kristine. Manifest. 2018.

Shore, Stephen. Uncommon Places. 1982

Sternfeld, Joel. American Prospects. 1987

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

The student knows and understands:

- The various ways in which landscape photography expressed core American identity concerns since the early twentieth century.

- Key landscape photographers and the way in which they produced their projects, developed their aesthetic goals, and sought to contribute to societal debates with their work.

The student is able to:

- Reflect on how landscape photography originated as a cultural construct in the early 20th century and how it was subsequently revised/developed/critiqued by the photographers we focus on.

- Understand how these photography projects contributed to critical debates surrounding American environmentalism.

The student is ready to:

- Critically asses the aesthetic and cultural value of this photographic work in terms of its ability to express and develop an American sense of self as it related to the environment, throughout various periods of American history (up to and including the present moment).

- 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 concepts discussed in the seminars.

In-class participation - 25%

Homework assignments - 25%

End of term paper – 50%