Good day! Hope you are well.
Today we will review work in progress, the use of quotations, summary, and paraphrase in the discussion of topics and issues relevant to civic life; i.e. our culture's varied use of the "n word" and our continued debate over the word's use: where valid, where to be discouraged, where censored? What do you hear when you hear or read the word? How do context and consensus shape the meaning and uses of a word? What have the many who have weighed in on this subject had to say? I expect to see a collection of voices in the papers written, with each of you marshaling and organizing source material to express both the range of opinion and your own best sense of the matter.
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We experience the world through our senses and mind, reading the meaning of color, shape, sound, texture, form, composition in the images endlessly playing in our perceptual fields. The images that culture produces–photographs, films, commercials, drawings, paintings, cartoons, logos, graphics, etcetera–these may be “read” and elicit our response just as a written text might. What can one learn from visual representations? Can one analyze the particular messages or meaning conveyed, interpret the story told, point or theme illustrated? Indeed, whether we want to understand the documentary value or the aesthetic appeal of a particular image, or the social, political, or economic interests and attitudes that an image represents, close study of visual representations can be fun and insightful activity.
How do advertisers get us to buy? What makes a particular photograph resonate? What storylines or themes implicit in images make us pause? How to begin identifying or “reading” the source content?
The following guidelines should help you write cogently about visual representations:
Source, Purpose, Audience
*Identify the context of the image; that is where and how it has been published and distributed or exhibited. To what end or purpose was it created, and by whom?
*What audience does the image address or appeal to? How so?
*What is the most prominent element or figure in the image? And the primary focal point?
Objects, Figures, Story
*Identify the important objects and figures of foreground and background, consider the literal and expressive details of each, and their collective arrangement in the composition.
*What story or event is depicted or implied?
*What mood or emotion or idea(s) are put in motion by the use of light and dark, color, balance or lack thereof, the use of white space, graphic text or other elements, etcetera?
Take Away Meaning
*To the extent the image persuades by feeling, mood, dramatic content, and so on, what is to be learned?
What do the uses of the image suggest about culture, politics, social life, art, history, the human condition?
Essay #6 (two alternatives):
(1) The following URL affords a fairly extensive photo archive that we will use for class practice in presenting and interpreting visual images. You will choose one image for a short work of 400-500 words that describes the image and the idea(s) it serves to illustrate or the questions to which it gives rise, whether social, historical, political, philosophical, aesthetic, technological, existential . . . . You must have a point to make in addressing the image and be as informative as you can.
(2) The online periodical Slate (slate.com) provides a fairly large archive of the work of cartoonists, who offer perspectives on matters making the news, in politics, sports, environment, etc. Choose one from the daily offering or the archives, describe the image and any accompanyng text, the artist or author, and the story, matter, or issue it addresses. You can google key words associated with the pictured material, and find recent news reports that may enhance your understanding of what is being depicted. Humor is typically an important element in cartoon work and you may have fun presenting readers the material. Avoid selecting any piece you do not get. 400-500 words, titled, double-spaced lines.
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