Week 1: Katie Warfield
1. Watch the video lecture
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In this week's lecture, Katie Warfield discusses selfies. This talk is a broad overview of some of the key ideas entangled within theorizing representation--particularly the representation of bodies--in the age of digital culture and social media. She compares the media portrayal and discourse of selfies--as narcissistic and vain--to the responses received from empirical work with young women who regularly take selfies. Rather than acts of vanity, these young women describe selfies as playful identity work and a form of self authoring. She discusses how selfies as representations work, and through some of her research data, she shows how selfies can be rethought as a new form of writing and authenticating the self.
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2. Required Readings
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3. Assignment and reflection...
1. Think about the images you share on your own social media accounts. Are there any images that you share for reasons related to social justice causes? What are they? What moved you to share these images?
2. What are the benefits of a so-called "democratization" of the visual? Are there any pitfalls to this too? 3. How do you think about images of your body that you share online? What metaphors would you use to describe these image? A flat photo? A still from a movie? A window into your day-to-day? Connected to your feelings? |