Department of English

Fiction published since 2000 incorporates, contemplates, and even antagonizes the photographs that appear in its pages. Our focus will be on the contemporary practice of fiction and photography, and we will read major touchstones of photography theory—Barthes, Benjamin, and Sontag—while also exploring new approaches, such as Ariella Azoulay’s writing on photography and human rights.

Assignments will consist of short exploratory writing, a multi-media research presentation, and a final comparative paper. Writers may include: Teju Cole, Jonathan Safran Foer, Rachel Kushner, Ben Lerner, W.G. Sebald, Ali Smith, Catherine Taylor, and Ivan Vladislavic.