Learning is Fun

I designed and implemented a new class at Emerson's Institute for Liberal Arts and Interdisciplinary Studies called The Literature of Photography. It's a class of 19 freshmen, about half writing majors and half arts majors. We are reading the usual suspects: Sontag, Barthes, Berger, Calvino. We also write poetry, study and critique narrative photography (what photography isn't, somehow, narrative?), and go into back alleys and take pictures of each other.

You can find some of my students' work on our Tumblr site. I will continue to brag about them as the semester goes on, I'm sure.

Exoticism and This Whole Photography Thing

I teach a class at Emerson College called Exoticism in Literature and Art. I began my academic inquiry of exoticism as a student at the Bennington Writing Seminars in 2000 because exoticism was what I did: I wrote about cultures other than my own. I exploited the charm of the unfamiliar. Is the word "exploit" nasty? How should art handle this? Meaning, if you're an artist, should you look at this issue differently than, say, a critic would? I play both sides. For more thoughts on this conundrum in the context of my travels, refer to an article I wrote for The Smart Set.

The implications of photographing "exotic" things and people - especially people - cause me concern, but that does not stop me from doing it. Sometimes, with an eye on the light-box peephole, you stop seeing people as people.

These are portraits of Dalits - "Untouchables" - in the village of Nalloor, India. They loved being photographed. The guy in the doorway followed me around all day. We had a great time. I was as exotic to them as they were to me.