Course description
The course is aimed to give the students an overview of the diverse methods and methodologies applied to photography, photographs and the photographic in the interdisciplinary field of Photography Studies. Methods and methodologies will be presented by introduction of their theoretical bases and examples of research. Furthermore, students will be given practical assignments to apply the methods explored to photographic material, in order to acquire the skills of academic research and analysis of photography and equip themselves with their own methodological toolbox. The course will address photographic material from Venetian archives.*
Possible topics of interest: mapping methodologies in Photography Studies; visual analysis; iconography; content analysis; discourse analysis; social semiotics; sociology and anthropology of practice; Cultural Studies; gender studies; new materialities; analysis and research of photographic images, photographic objects, photographic practices; methodological toolbox

Learning outcomes
The students will become familiar with a range of methods and methodologies applicable to analysis of photographs, and their theoretical bases. They will be able to identify the methods used by other reseachers. They will acquire a toolbox of methods to choose from in order to design and develop their own research and will reflect upon their own academic and methodological interests. The students will train their skill of critical and reflective thinking, writing, reading and speaking. Through group work assignments and peer reviewing they will develop their communicative talents and their collective work competence.

Teaching and evaluation method
The course is designed to help students learn by practice and by interaction with each other, with the material and with the lecturer. The teaching methods employed in the course include lectures, presentations, discussions, reading assignments, written summary assignments, as well as group, peer and individual practical assignments to apply methods and methodologies introduced to photographic material.

Breakdown of the final grade:
2 group written assignments: employing the methods -- 15%
4 individual written assignments: employing or summarizing the methods – 35%
In-class discussion participation: weekly – 25%
final presentation that applies a selected method to the material of students’ choice: to be presented at the end of the semester – 25%

Bibliography:**
Ball, M.S., Smith, G.W.H, Analyzing visual data. London: Sage, 1992
Bourdieu, P., et al. Photography: A Middle- Brow Art. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1990.
Bright, D. The graphic ordering of Desire: Modernization of a Middle-class women’s magazine, 1914-39, in Bolton, R.(ed.) The Contest of Meanings. Critical Histories of Photography. Cambridge, London: MIT Press, 1992. Pp.145-162
Burgin, V. Looking at Photographs, in Wells, L.(ed.) The Photography Reader: History and Theory. Routledge, 2018
Chalfen, R. Snapshot Versions of Life. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular Press
Crimp, D. The Museum’s Old/The Library’s New Subject, in Bolton, R.(ed.) The Contest of Meanings. Critical Histories of Photography. Cambridge, London: MIT Press, 1992. pp.3-14.
Tagg, J. The Burden of Representation. Minneapolis: MIT, 1993
Goffmann, E. Gender Advertisements. Harper Torchbooks, 1979.
Hall, S. Representation: Cultural Representation and Signifying Practice. London: Sage, 1997
Harper, D. Talking about pictures: A case for photo-elicitation, Visual Studies 17, 2002. Pp. 13-26
Krauss, R. Photography's Discursive Spaces, in Krauss, R. The Originality of the Avant-Garde and Other Modernist Myths. Cambridge,MIT: 1985), pp. 131–150
Kress, G., van Leeuwen, T. Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design, 2nd ed. Routledge, 2006
Kress, G. Multimodality: A Social Semiotic Approach to Contemporary Communication. Lodon: Routledge, 2010
Lutz, C.A. and Collins, J.L. Reading National Geographic. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993.
Phillips, N. and Hardy, C. Discourse Analysis: Investigating Processes of Social Construction. London: Sage, 2002.
Rose, G. Visual Methodologies. SAGE, 2016
Seppanen, J. The Power of the Gaze: An Introduction to Visual Literacy. New York: Lang, 2006
Tagg, J. God’s Sanitary Law: Slum Clearance and Photography in Nineteenth-Century Leeds, in
The Handbook of Visual Analysis, eds.van Leeuwen,T., Jewitt, C. London: SAGE Publications, 2011The Sage Handbook of Visual Research Methods. Eds.Pauwels, L. and Mannay, D. Sage, 2019
The Meaning of Composition, in Kress, G., van Leeuwen, T. Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design, 2nd ed. Routledge, 2006, pp.176-214.
Tonkiss, A. Analyzing discourse, in C.Seale (ed), Researching Society and Culture. London: Sage, 1998.

* for this course I would like to collaborate with 2-3 Venetian photographic archives to work with their material if possible.
Proposed list of archives to select from:
Palazzo Pesaro Orfei – Musei Civici Veneziani
Fondo Fotografico Tomaso Filippi Instituzioni di Ricovero e di Educazione di Venezia
Archivio Storico del Circolo Fotografico La Gondola
Universita IUAV. Archivio Progetti
Fototeca regionale del Veneto – Fondazione Cini
Archivio fotografico del Comune di Venezia

** all reading materials will be provided to students as pdf files