ANTH 575: Seminar in Ethnographic Film: Visuality & Anthropology

Although anthropology emphasizes textuality in the production of ethnography, visuality has always played a prominent role in ethnographic research. This graduate seminar probes the conflicted role of visuality and visual technologies in anthropology from the late 19th century to the present through an exploration of concepts such as “science versus art,” “iconophobia,” “reflexivity,” “sensory ethnography,” “indigenous media,” “sonic anthropology,” “experimental ethnography,” “graphic ethnography,” and “multimodality.” Although the course focuses on the United States, it also includes developments in Europe and its former colonies.

Rather than organized strictly chronologically we will look at the challenges and forms of resistance to earlier
models of ethnographic film that have developed in response to globalization and the postcolonial
interrogation of anthropology, as well as the impact of Black Lives Matter, decolonization movements, and
the present Trump era on the practice of visual anthropology. What impact have these ethical and political
challenges to the practice of ethnography had or may have on the types of visual anthropology being created today?

Key texts include Astourian (2024) The Ethnographic Optic: Jean Rouch, Chris Marker, Alain Resnais and the Turn Inwardin 1960s French Cinema; Grimshaw (2001) The Ethnographer’s Eye: Ways of Seeing in Modern Anthropology; MacDonald (2013) American Ethnographic Film and Personal Documentary: The Cambridge Turn; MacDougall (2006) The Corporeal Image: Film, Ethnography, and the Senses; and Taylor (1994), Visualizing Theory.

Please note* advanced undergraduates in Anthropology, Visual Anthropology and Global Studies are welcome to enroll with the instructor’s permission: lutkehau@usc.edu.