63-116 Cultural Geography (Imaging Violence, Imagining Europe)

Lehrende: Prof. Dr. Eray Cayli

Veranstaltungsart: Übung

Anzeige im Stundenplan:

Semesterwochenstunden: 2

Credits: 3,0

Unterrichtssprache: Englisch

Min. | Max. Teilnehmerzahl: 10 | 22

Kommentare/ Inhalte:
Since the late 18th century, a growing body of European cultural production has focused on raising awareness about suffering by aestheticizing it. How has this production shaped customary understandings of the relationship between violence and culture and, in so doing, imagined Europe and Europeanness? Specifically, how has it informed widespread understandings of violence and culture being mutually antithetical, and imaginations of Europe and Europeanness premised upon this antithesis? What are the critical responses with which these understandings and imaginaries have been met, and how might they be entangled in the very object oftheir criticism due to their approach to the relations between power, ethics, and aesthetics? This seminar course explores these questions through spatially charged visual cultural practice (e.g., contemporary art, photojournalism, etc.), focusing especially on its responses to colonialism, racism, imperialism, patriarchy, and climate change. The teaching format comprises seminars, requiring everyone to show up having read the weekly texts, having reflected on them and having prepared to discuss them at length during the seminar. As and when relevant and logistically possible, seminars may involve visits to museums and galleries in Hamburg.

Lernziel:
Learning outcomes (upon completion of this course, students should be able to):

1. List and explain the ways in which European visual cultural production has, since the 18th century, represented violence and catastrophe from across the globe, and how these representations have informed geopolitical imaginaries of Europe;

2. Outline and critically evaluate how the above-mentioned representations have both shaped and been shaped by notions of Europeanness, violence, and culture;

3. Critically explore the ways in which technological developments have influenced perceptions regarding the truthfulness of artistic representations of violence and catastrophe;

4. Internalise theories on the ethics and politics of aestheticizing violence and catastrophe, with a specific focus on the question of whom aestheticization empowers or disempowers;

5. Apply the above theories to the critical analysis of specific spatially charged cases from the recent past or the present.

Vorgehen:
This is a seminar course. That the teaching format of this course is a seminar means it is taught through readings and in-class discussions based on them. There are two required readings per week as well as recommended ones (PDFs of all will be provided in advance). Each reading will be introduced briefly (for 5-8 minutes) by a student, followed by open discussion. There will also be structured discussions involving group work and guided by Eray’s questions and/or further material he will introduce on the day. Students are encouraged to use what is called a “reflection sheet” to structure their thoughts ahead of each class so as to prepare to participate as fully as possible in the discussions to be had in class. This is effectively a form with three simple sections that help structure one’s reflections on what one has read (a template and further information are provided here under "Resources"). Doing so is likely to benefit especially those students presenting a required weekly text. The seminars may involve discussions in groups of varying sizes (in pairs, in trios, and within the whole group). The office hours will enable one-to-one discussion of students’ ideas. Where relevant, the course will make use of visual material, site visits, online video tutorials on the technicalities of coursework, and online platforms for dialogic/collective critique (i.e., by way of posting reflections on MIN-Moodle), extending teaching and learning to spaces outside the classroom and/or campus.

Literatur:
Indicative reading

Harriet Hawkins (2020) Geography, Art, Research: Artistic Research in the GeoHumanities. Routledge: London.
Elizabeth Straughan and Harriet Hawkins, eds. (2016) Geographical Aesthetics: Imagining Space, Staging Encounters. Ashgate: Farnham.
Susan Sontag (1977) On Photography. New York: Picador.
Paul Virilio (1989) War and Cinema: The Logistics of Perception. London and New York: Verso.
John Taylor (1998) Body Horror: Photojournalism, Catastrophe and War. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Susan Sontag (2003) Regarding the Pain of Others. New York: Picador.
Ariella Azoulay (2003) Death's Showcase: The Power of Image in Contemporary Democracy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Ariella Azoulay (2008) The Civil Contract of Photography. New York: Zone Books.
Susan Sliwinski (2011) Human Rights in Camera. Chicago: University ofChicago Press.
Liam Kennedy and Caitlin Patrick (2014) The Violence of the Image. London: IB Tauris.
Forensic Architecture (2014) Forensis: The Architecture of Public Truth. Berlin: Sternberg Press.
Allen Feldman (2015) Archives of the Insensible: Of War, Photopolitics, andDead Memory. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.