FYS 5 Reframing the I/Eye: The Politics of Autobiographical Media
The rise of identity-based social movements in the late 20th century coincided with the emergence of consumer video technologies, sparking a profusion of autobiographical media works by female-identifying, LGBTQ+, and BIPOC individuals who were not simply demanding representation in media, but that such representations be complex, intersectional, and self-produced. These autobiographical video works served as powerful corrections, both to the essentializing, extractive, colonialist legacies of documentary production, and to the traditions of autobiography—until then a largely literary tradition cultivated by white men expounding on their lives of privilege. And yet in that pre-digital, pre-internet moment the propensities to edit material and access channels of distribution were still profoundly limited. In our own 21st century moment where hi-definition video can increasingly be recorded, edited, and distributed via our phones and social media accounts, how have the politics and poetics of self-representation changed? Can autobiography still function as a political act, or has it become a digital commonplace, lost in the noise of selfie-culture and personal branding? Through readings, screenings, critical writing, and a final digital project option, this seminar will challenge students to reimagine the potentials of autobiography today. Open only to first year frosh.