Reference no: EM133308098

Assignment:

Deconstructing an Alaskan Photograph: This mini-essay is an opportunity to apply the theory of deconstruction to a photograph selected from Alaska's Digital Archive, a treasure trove of Alaska culture and history. Susan Sontag famously wrote that "The camera always hides more than it discloses." Think about this as you explore Alaska's Digital Archive, reconsider ways of writing about imagery we covered in Unit Two, but also study the tenets of deconstruction/poststructuralism and structuralism in your textbook (pages 182 to 184) and class discussion. Recall a deconstructive approach involves reading a text (or image) subversively, "against the grain," looking for chances to make meaning that may run counter to the creator's intentions or what the text appears to be saying.

In other words, deconstructionist criticism reveals the disunity inherent in all texts. Deconstruction takes its subject apart and exposes contradictions, ambiguities, complexities, blind spots, and oppositions. There is no privileged, value-free point of view. For example, using deconstruction to read a photograph means looking "through" the image and "beyond the frame" to consider what is not depicted or emphasized in the image and why. What assumptions are at stake in the image and how can these assumptions be undermined? What is potentially paradoxical or contradictory about the image? What is the photograph "repressing" in order to make meaning? What "sneaks in" to undermine the photo's intentions? Could some marginal detail be interpreted as the main point? How could the photograph be accidentally or intentionally misread? What do we/you see in (or behind or beyond) the image that its creator or original audience could or would not acknowledge?