This seminar will use a series of case studies to focus on photography and the representation of and by blacks in the United States and the Caribbean. The seminar will take advantage of the exhibition I have curated at the Berkeley Art Museum entitled “Sojourner Truth, Photography and the Fight Against Slavery” as well as local permanent collections. We will examine theorizations and uses of photography by former slaves such as Sojourner Truth and Frederick Douglass; photography by African Americans such as James Van der Zee, Charles Teenie Harris, Roy de Carava, Lorna Simpson, and Carrie Mae Weems; and appropriations of photographs by black artists such as Romare Bearden, Adrian Piper and Glenn Ligon.

Together we will be reading writings by Frederick Douglass, Roland Barthes, Debora Willis, bell hooks, Krista Thompson, Tanya Sheehan, Christopher Pinney, Maurice O. Wallace, Shawn Michelle Smith, Leigh Raiford, Kobena Mercer and myself, among others.

Graduate students are welcome.

This course fulfills the following Major requirements: Geographical areas (C) and Chronological period (III).