OBME 2245 - Visual Inquiry: An Introduction to Non-Fiction Images

(Discussions will be in English, but students who prefer may write in French)

Visual Inquiry asks how images intervene in the production of knowledge: Do images allow us to know things that words alone cannot? How do images do this? Through cases drawn across the arts, sciences, and the everyday, this introductory course surveys how image-making techniques shape the ways we represent, interpret, and come to know the world around us. Students will also engage these processes in practice themselves through introductory exercises using video and digital media.

The course’s first unit considers how filmmakers and visual scholars have theorized ways of thinking through the audiovisual. The second unit analyzes how the age of digital imagery has reconfigured notions of objectivity, reproduction, and authenticity/artificiality. The third unit turns to anthropological literature and (para)ethnographic film to question how the in/visible mediates social, lived experience. By the end of the course, students will be equipped to think critically about a range of visual strategies used to produce knowledge claims, to analyze how different images intervene in the economy of thought, and to engage acts of sight with greater intentionality in their future work.

Learning Outcomes

• Analyze images using theories from Visual Studies, Science and Technology Studies, and Anthropology
• Identify and discuss key concepts behind how images are made and operate
• Create basic images that respond to research prompts

Professional Skills

Critical Thinking, Creative Thinking, Research & Analysis

No prerequisites, but recommended for students interested in using images in their research/fieldwork next year.

Students will receive verbal feedback (in class) and written feedback after each units’ assignment (3 across the course).

• Weekly practical exercises (20%): Introductory exercises using video/digital imagery tools will be explained in class and due in 1-2 weeks at 5pm on the day before the assigned class.
• Discussion participation (20%): All students are expected to come prepared to participate actively in course conversations. Consider engaging your peers’ ideas and work as a prerequisite for receiving responses to yours in turn.
• Presentation of one week’s readings/films (15%): Each week, 1-2 students will present a summary of that week’s readings/films to the class. Students will sign up during the first week of class.
• Assignments due at the end of Units 1, 2, and 3 (45%; i.e. 15% per unit): The course is structured in three units of four weeks each. An iteration of the student’s main project will be due at the end of each unit and will build on one another, culminating in a final assignment to hand in at the end of the course.

• In Class Presence: 2 hours a week / 24 hours a semester
• Reading and Preparation for Class: 2 hours a week / 24 hours a semester
• Research and Writing for Individual Assessments: 4 hours per 1-2 weeks / 24 hours a semester