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Undergraduate Education Overview
Courses Offered
for the Upcoming Semester
Current and
Past Semester Courses
Instructors
Undergraduate Certificate
Documentary Studies Courses and
Cross-Listed Courses
Lehman Brady Visiting Joint Chair Professor
in Documentary Studies and American Studies
Student Opportunities at CDS
Past
Semester Courses
Spring 2006
DOCST 100S Children and the Experience of Illness
Instructor: Moses
W 3:05–5:35 (Lyndhurst 113)
An exploration of how children cope with illness, incorporating
the tools of documentary photography and writing. Students will
work outside class with a child who is ill and teach them how to
use a Polaroid camera, working toward an exhibit of photographs
at the end of the semester. Consent of instructor required. No prerequisites.
DOCST
115 Introduction to Photography
Instructor: Hunter
MW 10:05–11:20 (Lyndhurst 201)
Foundation class in black-and-white photographic process as the
basis for using photography as a visual language. Students learn
to make a printable exposure using black-and-white film, make a
"proper proof," and make an 8 x 10 enlargement. Assignments
include portraits, alternative techniques, landscape, and a final
portfolio that embodies a single visual idea. Consent of instructor
required.
DOCST
118S Alternative Photo Processes
Instructor: Hunter
Th 3:05–5:35 (Lyndhurst 201)
Survey of historic photographic processes, including Gun Bichromate,
Cyanotype, Kalotype, and Platinum/Palladium printing. Consent of
instructor required.
DOCST 120S Documentary Research Methods
Instructor: Avots
W 3:05–5:35 (Lyndhurst 201)
A how-to course in doing research for documentaries, including film,
photography, audio, and narrative projects. Students will collaborate
on a class project, using fieldwork in the community, local archives,
and other resources to document a chapter of Durham history. Students
will find and analyze documents, oral histories, photographs, and
artifacts, as well as examine intersections between documentary
and history, analyzing key contributions to the documenting of American
and European history throughout the past century. Discussion topics
include: memory, truth, objectivity, propaganda, narrative, audience,
and authority. As a final project, students have the opportunity
to research a documentary interest of their own. No experience in
film, photography, or audio documentary necessary.
DOCST
122S Visual Research and the American Dream
Instructor: Hyde
M 3:05–5:35 (Lyndhurst 201)
This field-based course combines both documentary and sociological
approaches to examine the idea of the American Dream, and its cultural
and material symbols. Selected readings will guide the course. Students
will also look at documentary photography and film as well as visual
sociological research in order to understand the ways different
groups of people relate to the American Dream, the circumstances
under which the dream has failed many Americans, and the cultural
conditions that limit viability of counter-ideologies. Students
will learn how documentarians and sociologists use visual methods
(such as shooting scripts, photo-elicitation, and photo essays)
to tell about society. Students will complete a semester-long documentary
project that will be divided into specific assignments using various
forms of visual research.
DOCST
129 Contemporary Documentary Films
Instructor: Paletz/Rankin
M 1:30–4:30 (Nasher 105)
Integrated with the films and filmmakers of the Full
Frame Documentary Film Festival. The art, form, and technology
of documentary films. Continuity and change in the style, issues,
and politics of contemporary documentary filmmaking. Analysis of
outstanding films from around the world. Presentations and discussions
by filmmakers.
DOCST
150S Intermediate Documentary Filmmaking
Instructor: Hawkins
Th 3:05–5:25 Th 7:30–8:45 (Lyndhurst 104)
Intermediate to advanced filmmaking techniques. Presumes a working
knowledge of Final Cut Pro, mini-DV camera, and some fieldwork experience
with a camcorder. Topics include fieldwork in a variety of communities
and work on pertinent social and cultural issues. Prerequisite:
Documentary Studies 105S or equivalent experience and knowledge.
Consent of instructor required.
DOCST 155S Hearing Is Believing: Intermediate Audio Documentary
Instructor: Biewen
M 3:05–5:35 (Lyndhurst 001)
Intermediate to advanced audio documentary techniques. Presumes
a working knowledge of field recording and Protools, or similar
audio editing software, building on knowledge gained either from
classes in our program or similar audio documentary production experience.
Topics include fieldwork with an audio recorder in a variety of
cultural settings. Students will work with instructor on a particular
social issue but will also work independently on a broadcast-quality
audio production suitable for radio or podcasting. Prerequisite:
DOCST 135S or similar production experience and knowledge. Consent
of instructor required.
DOCST
164S Who Cares and Why: Social Activism and Its Motivations
Instructor: Thompson
W 3:05–5:35 (Lyndhurst 001)
Documentary fieldwork based research on the lives of people who
have committed themselves to changing society. Life history interviews
exploring personal and societal transformations with special attention
to the antecedents to personal change leading to examined lives
of commitment. Attention to various areas of social change, including
human rights, civil rights, international activism, labor rights,
and environmental activism. Focus on societal and personal questions
regarding motivations for, and the effectiveness of, good works
in several cultural settings.
View
Web site documenting course trip to post-Katrina New Orleans
DOCST
176S American Communities: Photography
Instructor: Post-Rust
W 7:15–9:45 (Smith Warehouse Arts Media Lab 228)
Theory and practice of documentary photography. Course of study
includes exploration of the documentary tradition and classic documentary
books with emphasis on photographs produced by the students. Students
complete a documentary photography project of a community outside
the university. Consent of instructor, Susie
Post-Rust, required.
DOCST
190S.01 Civil Rights and Labor Struggles
Instructor: Rubio
Th 3:05-5:35 (Lyndhurst 001)
Oral history fieldwork and “writing in the discipline”
seminar. Encourages students through readings and practical activity
to think critically about connections between civil rights and labor
history in the U.S. Emphasis on creating an independent oral history
research project based on an interview with someone whose life story
relates to civil rights and labor struggles at Duke or in the Durham
area; the finished product should be ready for archiving. Course
develops an understanding of the methodological as well as technical
components of oral history interviewing, different kinds of writing
on history and culture, and discovering an original writing style.
DOCST
190S.02 Viewing Race: Films and Jim Crow South
Instructor: Jones
W 6:15–8:45 (Lyndhurst Auditorium)
Focusing on the historical and political mechanisms constructed
and maintained in the Jim Crow South, this course uses audio interviews
from the Behind the Veil oral history collection, documentary and
commercial films (D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation
and Macky Alston’s Family Name, among others), and
other relevant materials to present students with authentic documentary
portrayals of African American life during the age of Southern racial
segregation. Students will read seminal works and secondary materials
that coincide with the interviews and films, as well as write film
critiques and a research paper that explores the collective history
of African American Southerners. Note: readings average approximately
100–200 pages per week.
DOCST
190S.03 Freedom Stories: Documenting Southern Lives and Writing
Movement History
Instructor: Tyson
T 3:05–5:35 (Lyndhurst 113)
Documentary writing course focusing on race and storytelling in
the South. Human beings in general and Southerners in particular
have always told stories, preserving their lives and defining their
cultures. While historians continue the age-old traditions of storytellers,
they bring to the modern campfire an array of resources—archival
research, quantitative and qualitative analysis—ancient storytellers
never envisioned. Yet some historians, in their quest to refine
these tools, forget their obligation to speak to and for broader
communities that suffer from a dangerous and deepening social amnesia.
Course will use both fiction and autobiography in addition to traditional
history books to examine how Southerners have used historical narratives
to find meaning in the past and possibility in the future, focusing
especially on the ways that Southerners have tried to transform
American politics and culture. Students will read these books paired
with narratives and create alternatives using documentary research,
interviews, memories, and the raw stuff of life. Students will gain
a more sophisticated understanding of documents and narratives,
a stronger understanding of twentieth-century racial politics, and
sharper writing skills, as they engage in an ongoing community-based
democratic conversation.
DOCST
190S.04 Telling Our Stories: Poetry and Historical Imagination
Instructor: Trethewey
T 3:05–5:35 (Lyndhurst 201)
Uncovering personal and community stories through poetic storytelling.
Students will engage with poetry about places, cultures, and personal
pasts through readings and their own writing. Fieldwork-based research
is strongly recommended (course may involve group field trips),
as students turn experiences into verse.
DOCST
196S Capstone Seminar
Instructor: Harris
M 3:05-5:35 (Smith Warehouse Arts Media Lab 228)
Immersion in fieldwork-based inquiry and in-depth projects that
serve as Certificate in Documentary Studies capstone experiences
for students. Methods of documentary fieldwork, including participant
observation, and modes of arts and humanities interpretation through
a variety of mediums (including papers, film, photography exhibits,
radio pieces, and performances). Consent of instructor required.
Prerequisite: DOCST 101 and four DOCST electives.
See listing
of required and elective certificate courses
Fall 2005
Spring 2005
Fall 2004
Spring 2004
Fall
2003
Spring
2003
banner image:
Untitled, from
the series Latino Pastimes—La
Vida y el Fútbol. Photograph by William L. Plaxico, from
the course "Documentary Photography
and the Southern Cultural Landscape," taught by Professor Tom
Rankin.
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