Glossary Terms for Sturken and Cartwright Reading to help you
empirical
naturalize
objective
positivist
subjective
assignment description:(Two Parts)
Part one:
Make small paragraph writing in the discussion page(not more than 500 words):
Hall argues that representations depend on two things to make meaning: shared conceptual maps and sets of rules called codes. Identify some of the visual codes or conventions at work in Their First Murder that try to fix meaning and describe how they do this. Conventional understandings of both truth and photography are implicated in what Sturken and Cartwright call “the myth of photographic truth” (2001, p. 17). How is this idea relevant to interpreting Weegee’s image?
Part two:
Write a short informal essay (approximately 1000 words) on one of the following topics. Be sure that you are presenting the concepts in your own words and that you include current information. (You may use “I” when it seems appropriate.)
Follow conventional format for preparing your essay and citing sources.
Essay Topics
Read Sturken and Cartwright’s description of the still life by Pieter Claesz carefully (pages 13 and 14). What pictorial conventions are at work in this image to convince you to accept the objects depicted as “real”? In other words, identify the illusionstic devices (or cues that reference our visual experience of the real world) we recognize as signifiers of volume and depth and use to endow shapes on a flat surfaces with those properties. Discuss this process. The authors describe the picture as “a reference to the everyday food of the common people” (2001, p. 14). Do you think the scene is set in a lower class household? Why or why not? What can an image like this one tell us about society in seventeenth-century Holland?
Read Sturken and Cartwright’s account of how ideological considerations informed the portrait of O.J. Simpson chosen for the cover of Time in 1994 (2001, pp. 23–24). Find (and reproduce) a photograph that you believe does similar representational work and perform your own analysis. (Be sure to cite the source of the image in the same way that you would cite any other quoted material.)
Criteria for Evaluating Essay Assignments
Substance (75 per cent)
The essay provides evidence of critical thinking and presents an informed and thoughtful discussion.
Research sources are relevant, current, and credible. They are clearly documented in the paper.
The introduction explains the purpose of the paper and the issue or issues you will address. This can take the form of a question or questions.
The body develops your enquiry by providing explanations/information and organizing ideas and examples as clearly and directly as possible.
The conclusion summarizes the learning that has taken place through writing the paper; it also presents a (tentative) position statement and/or suggests direction for future research. Again, queries might be more suitable here than assertions.
Writing Style and Format (25 per cent)
Paragraphs are coherent, with transitions between ideas.
Sentences are grammatically correct; words are chosen for accuracy and impact.
The writing follows the conventions of spelling and mechanics (punctuation, etc.).
The format follows the documentation style (i.e., APA, MLA, Chicago Manual of Style) accurately and consistently.
