Visual Ethnography
Fall 2008
9 13 2008

p. kerim friedman
kerim.oxus.net

ci.ndhu.edu.tw

savageminds.org

fournineandahalf.com

Visual Ethnography
Fall Theory
Spring Production

Visual Ethnography
(Fall 2008)

Visual Literacy

The Gaze

The Documentary
Tradition
(in Anthropology)

Indigenous Films

New Media

Visual Literacy
• Narrative
• Mise en Scene
• Editing
• Alternative Forms

Narrative

Three-Act Structure

When Harry Met Sally

Boys Don't Cry

Mise en Scene

Interpreting the Frame

Citizen Kane

Goodfellas

Editing

Structure

Battleship Potemkin

Breathless

Alternative Forms

Avant Garde

Run Lola Run

Flowers of Shanghai

Meshes in the Afternoon

The Gaze
• The Gendered Gaze
• The Western Gaze

The Gendered Gaze

• Berger, J. 1977. Ways of seeing.
• hooks, bell. 1993. The oppositional gaze.
• Metz, Christian. 1986. The imaginary
signifier.
• Mulvey, Laura. 1975. Visual Pleasure and
Narrative Cinema.

Rear Window

Red Road

The Western Gaze

• Cohn, B. 1996. Colonialism and its forms of
knowledge.
• Fabian, J. 1983. Time and the other.
• Said, E. 1979. Orientalism.
• Williamson, J. 1986. Woman is an Island.

Black Narcissus

The Lover

The Documentary
Tradition
• Kino-Pravda
• Changing Rules
• Transcultural Cinema
• Jean Rouch

Kino Pravda

• Barnouw, E. 1993. Documentary.
• MacDougall, D. 1998. Transcultural cinema.
(Chapters 1 & 2)
• Ruby, J. 1995. Out of Sync:The Cinema of Tim
Asch.
• ———. 2000. The Aggie Must Come First:
Robert Flaherty's Place in Ethnographic Film
History.

Nanook of the North

Man with a Movie Camera

Changing Rules

• MacDougall, D. 1998. Transcultural cinema.
(Chapters 3-6)
• Nichols, B. 1991. The Ethnographer's Tale.
• Ruby, J. 1991. Speaking For, Speaking About,
Speaking With, or Speaking Alongside.

The Ax Fight

Lorang's Way

Dead Birds

Transcultural Cinema

• MacDougall, D. 1998. Transcultural cinema.
(Chapters 7-13)

Cannibal Tours

N!ai :
The Story of a !Kung Woman

Jean Rouch

• Loizos, P. 1993. Innovation in ethnographic
film: From innocence to self-consciousness.
• Stoller, P. 1992. The cinematic griot:The
ethnography of jean rouch.

Les Maitres Fous

Moi un Noir

Jaguar

Indigenous Films

• Ginsburg, F. 1991. Indigenous Media: Faustian
Contract or Global Village?
• Michaels, E. 1994a. Aboriginal Content:Who's
Got It - Who Needs It?
• ———. 1994b. For a Cultural Future: Francis
Jupurrurla Makes TV at Yuendumu.
• Turner, T. 1992. Defiant Images:The Kayapo
Appropriation of Video.

Video in the Villages Presents
Itself

Marangmotxingmo Mirang

The Fast Runner

New Media

• Friedman, P. 2008. Massively Multiplayer
Online Anthropology.
• Shirky, C. 2008. Here comes everybody:The
power of organizing without organizations.

The Machine is Us/Ing Us

Steal This Film II

Student Presentations
Taiwanese Documentary Films

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slideshare.com/kerim

Note: The following Creative Commons license only refers to the
original work I have contributed to this slide show. It does not cover
the images used for each of the films mentioned in my syllabus, as
they are copyrighted works and are reproduced here under fair use.
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