This course explores visual culture and tools for analyzing and representing culture visually. We will study ethnographic and documentary films alongside ethnographic writings to wrestle with the possibilities of image and text to communicate social life to various audiences. Students will learn to interpret, contextualize, and evaluate a repertoire of work in visual anthropology. Guiding this study is the central question: how does film convey reality, or produce the “effect” of reality? How does that effect compare with what we experience in our everyday lives and what we might access in the lives of others through ethnographic research?
