Postgraduate module in Visual History, 2020-21 (HIS 735/835)

Convenor:  Patricia Hayes SARChI Chair Visual History & Theory
Email: visualhistoryuwc@gmail.com and phayes@uwc.ac.za

The course offers students the opportunity to become skilled in both the historical and cultural analysis of images, and their production. The focus is particularly on photography and its relationship to African and global histories, and how the image has been theorized. There are two sides to the course, one theoretical and the other practical. Practical sections of the module are taught by photojournalist Eric Miller (emiller@iafrica.com) and our photography classes engage directly with the course theme of the year, which in 2023 is ‘Extraction & the Ethics of Seeing.’ Inspired by a Global Classroom on the Anthropocene with the University of Toronto in 2022, we continue to investigate the role that photography and the critical field of photo studies together might play in imagining and creating collective futures, afterlives, and other lives on our planet. The focus is on photography in relation to the violence of imperialism and capitalism; ecology and species extinction; colonial and postcolonial archives; and race and temporality—including their hitherto unexplored intersections.

This postgraduate module course may be taken by students registered for Honours and MA degree programmes and can also be audited by doctoral students. The module is held in the first semester each year on Wednesday, at the CHR.