Syllabus: The Culture of the Selfie
In 2014, the Oxford English Dictionary declared “selfie” as the word of the year. However, this course begins with the premise that the selfie is not a total break from earlier cultures of self- presentation. While the selfie is a new form of technological mediation, it shares similarities with other forms such as self-portraiture and autobiography. At the same time, it allows (to modify a term from Erving Goffman), a "hyper-presentation of self in everyday life." Beginning with a historical approach, this course will examine selfies as a set of specific habits and modalities attached to the practice of everyday life in the digital era. The course is designed to help students understand the implications of living in a society saturated with image-based media. Media saturation also means naturalization and this course is built upon the premise that de-naturalizing media is a precondition for media-literacy and political awareness. The aim of this course is to enable students to recognize the constructed nature of selfies as image-forms. For this reason, we will cover a range of theoretical approaches and texts that will inform class-themes such as intimacy, surveillance, activism and celebrity-culture. This readings and classes are aimed at asking the question: what do selfies do? Although selfies are usually described as fleeting, ephemeral and fast forms of media production and exchange, we will engage in close reading practices that allow us to read selfie-images with the same care and attention as we would, a feature length film. Overall, this course will equip students with the analytical skills that are required for sustained critical engagement with media-forms.
Required Texts:
- Erving Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (University of Edinburgh Social Science Research Centre, (1956)
- Eric Freedman, Transient Images: Personal Media in Public Frameworks (Temple UP, 2011)
- Mark Andrejevic, Reality TV: The Work of Being Watched. (Rowman & Littlefield, 2004)
- Brooke Wendt, The Allure of the Selfie: Instagram and the New Self Portrait (2014)
- Ego Update: A History of the Selfie, Edited by Alain Bieber (Walther Koenig, 2015)
- Jill Walker Rettberg, Seeing Ourselves Through Technology: How We Use Selfies, Blogs and Wearable Devices to See and Shape Ourselves (Palgrave, 2014)
- Nicholas Mirzoeff, How to See the World: An Introduction to Images, from Self-Portraits to Selfies, Maps to Movies and More (Penguin, 2015)
- Three reading posts (300-400 words)—15%
- Three Mandatory Assignments—30% (details on sample assignment page)
- One 10-15 page research paper due on the last day of class—30% (Topic of your choice)
- In-class Presentations— 15% (Weekly Readings)
- Attendance and Participation—10% (Includes weekly discussion and final roundtable)