This course follows the documentary paradigm through its three major moments–its emergence among the interwar avant-gardes, its reanimation in the 1960s, and the contemporary documentary turn. With an eye toward the specific historical conditions, mediatic technologies, and aesthetic conventions that have determined the distinction between reality and its representation at each of these moments, this seminar considers: deskilling and the industrialization of writing; the contest between literature and photography; mass media and the temporality of news; changing conditions of authorship; documentation, the archive and forensic investigation.
