Visual Anthropology Prompt.

You can use the following prompt to guide your writing process, *or* you can supply your own prompt, as long as it meets the objectives of 1) demonstrating your mastery of the material from the Part I of the class and 2) causing you to reflect on how this knowledge may affect how you interpret the Ethnographic and Indigenous films the we will be watching.

Please bring your print out to class. In lieu of a timed- writing, we'll do a peer-review of the papers. Send me the final draft by Sunday morning (preferably sooner) so I can grade them by Tuesday.

Make sure your essay has a thesis statement that you support in the subsequent paragraphs.

Papers should be 4-5pp, double-spaced, 1” margins, Times New Roman.

Use in-text citations and a bibliography (MLA, APA, Chicago Manual, etc. are all fine.)

PROMPT

Drawing on the readings and films assigned during weeks 1-4, describe turn-of-the-century Western paradigms of collecting art and culture and discuss how they inform contemporary practices regarding the visual representation of “Other” cultures.

Be sure to situate these visual discourses in their historical context in terms of:

·        Cultural context: What other visual discourses made representations and displays of exotic cultures meaningful to audiences?

·        Political-economic context: What was going on during this period and how was it related to these practices?

·        Social Context: How did social concerns within Western societies affect the public reception of these productions?

·        Scientific/Technological Context: How did scientific discourses and the availability of technology during this era impact representational practices and their circulation?