In the last century, the reliance on reading and writing texts in order to form or express ideas has been largely replaced by mass viewing and visual recordings of our experiences. Or so the argument goes. Rather than jumping to any dire judgments about this shift, or trying to explore the entire field of visual culture, this course will focus instead on the particular ways in which writers and critics debated or understood the effects of an increasing reliance on photography to shape perceptions. We will need to grasp both the history of the development of photographic practice and circulation, as well as how the development of photography’s social usefulness set off provocative claims about photography’s effects on, among other things: traditional social relations; political culture; and, of course, the uses and value of writing and reading. Most readings will be collected in a course packet, including, among other things: short works by Henry James, Edgar Allen Poe, John Dos Passos, and James Agee and Walker Evans; criticism by Walter Benjamin, Roland Barthes, Shawn Smith, Martha Rosler, and John Tagg. In addition to the course packet, we’ll read two novels, the graphic novel Palestine by Joe Sacco, and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer.