Taught by

Status updates, selfies, live feeds. In the 21st-century society seems obsessed with capturing reality in the forms of text and images. However evanescent, these digital technologies are modes of documentation. But what is a document? What does it mean to document something? What does it mean to store and archive these documents? As evidence of the present moment, documents are a distinctly modern phenomenon. This is to say that the idea of documentation is born out of the concerns of the Enlightenment and the notions of time and record-keeping that it held dear.

Using two documentary media—photography and writing—we will explore what it means to create a history of the present. These media will slow down the process of documentation so that we can explore and create more fully and deliberately. We will explore the history of documentary writing and image documentation. We will look at pictures and read literature and theory. Exploring the line between fact and fiction will be a constant concern, as will the cumulative effect of documents in archives of all kinds. We will consider and discuss the status of art in the age of the document.

Students can expect to learn to use cameras, including black-and-white film photography techniques and darkroom processing. Students can also expect to hone their skills in creative nonfiction, memoirs, travel writing, essays, and other documentary techniques. We will read novels, journalism, autobiographies, and histories from the 19th century to the present, along with some critical theory, to improve our critical reading. Students should expect class time to be equally divided between photography, writing, and lecture/ seminar. We will take pictures and write every week, working toward a documentary study of various aspects of the Evergreen campus.

Quarters

Spring Open

Location and Schedule

Campus Location

Olympia

Time Offered

Day