Susan Sontag Essay Example Essay Example

Susan Sontag Essay Example Paper Susan Sontag Essay Introduction In the essay titled â€Å"America Seen through Photographs Darkly† Susan Sontag discusses the advent of realism, the misinterpretations of realism, and the acceptance of surrealism as a substitute for realism in the realm of photography in America. Sontag chooses the thoughts of Walt Whitman to provide a framework for studying the works of photographers from the 1930s to the 1960s. In so doing, Susan Sontag makes many controversial statements. While some may be accepted logically, there are others which can be refuted. What is significant however is that Susan Sontag through this essay creates awareness of what beauty and importance means, and of what realism means in the context of photography.Walt Whitman perceived the democratic values of culture as that which existed beyond the contexts of beauty and ugliness, importance and triviality. According to Walt Whitman, nobody would fret about beauty and ugliness. The views of Walt Whitman changed the view of artists in many fiel ds dramatically. Artists took seriously Whitman’s program of populist transcendence of the democratic transvaluation of beauty and ugliness, importance and triviality. This resulted in an inclination to portray reality as it was rather than focusing only on traditional concepts of beauty. In the case of photography, this desire, instead of resulting in demystification of reality has resulted in a mystification of the art according to Sontag. This argument of Sontag is further strengthened by Susie Linfield who says that though photographs (of humanism) don’t explain the way the world works ..it’s true that photographs document the specific, they tend, also, to blur—dangerously blur—political and historic distinctions†. She explains this with the example. A photograph of a bombed-out apartment building in Berlin, circa 1945, looks much like a photograph of a bombed-out apartment building in Hanoi, circa 1969, which looks awfully similar to a p hotograph of a bombed-out apartment building in Baghdad from last week.This is a mystifying aspect of realism. Further according to Susie Linfield, people generally approach photographs, first and foremost, on an emotional level. She points out that Brecht regarded all feeling as dishonest and dangerous. In the book â€Å"Witness Iraq: A War Journal February–April 20003† there is one image showing six women in a cemetery outside Baghdad. The picture was taken by Jerome Delay, a French war photographer for the Associated Press and the caption tells us, â€Å"Relatives of Mohammed Jaber Hassan weep over his coffin . . . Hassan, 22, died when a bomb fell on a busy market in Baghdad’s Shula district.† Because the picture is dated â€Å"03/29/03,† we know that the bomb was probably an American one and that it was dropped on the civilian marketplace almost certainly by accident. If the picture were dated 2006, then, it would imply that the bomb was plant ed by insurgents in Iraq (Linfield, 2006). Thus, we can conclude that Susan Sontag is very right in pointing to the mystification that happens when photographers become humanistic in approach.Sontag says, â€Å"To photograph is to confer importance. No moment is more important than any other moment; no person is more interesting than any other person†. One of the most talked about photographs of recent times is the picture of an anonymous Afghan refugee woman taken by photographer Steve McCurry for the cover of National Geographic Magazine June 1985. The photograph showed the piercing stare of a young woman peering from a bedraggled cloak. The piercing green eyes epitomized the tragic story of dispossessed children everywhere and the image became a 20th-century icon. It was only recently in 2002, that Steve McCurry could trace her back and found that the woman’s name was Sharbat Gula (Connor, 2002).â€Å"Whitman thought he was not abolishing beauty but generalizing it . So, for generations, did the most gifted American photographers, in their polemical pursuit of the trivial and the vulgar†. Susan Sontag talks about Walker Evans as the last great photographer to have worked seriously in mood derived from Whitman’s euphoric humanism. She says that Evans was not as arty as Stieglitz. In the words of Sontag, â€Å"Evans sought a more impersonal kind of affirmation, a noble reticence, and a lucid understatement†. She justifies her statement that Evans was not arty by pointing out that Evan never tried to express himself in the photographs (like an artist does). He took photographs of architectural still life of American facades and exacting portraits of Southern sharecroppers in the 1930s. This view of Sontag is supported by Lincoln Kirstein who wrote ‘Looked at in sequence they are overwhelming in their exhaustiveness of detail, their poetry of contrast, and, for those who wish to see it, their moral implication†. Thi s explains why Sontag said that Evan’s project seemed to descend from Whitman. Evans project showed a leveling of discriminations between the beautiful and the ugly. Sontag further makes the point that everything is morally equivalent to a photograph. Evans wanted his works to be literate, authoritative and transcendent. Whitman preached empathy, concord in discord oneness in diversity. This message of identification with other Americans links Whitman and Evans in a subtle manner.â€Å"The moral universe of the 1930s being no longer ours, these adjectives are barely creditable today. Nobody demands that photography be literate. Nobody can imagine how it could be authoritative. Nobody understands how anything, least of all a photograph, could be transcendent†. John Szarkowski, in his introduction to â€Å"Walker Evans† explains the meaning thus: â€Å"The photographer must define his subject with an educated awareness of what it is and what it means; he must des cribe it with such simplicity and sureness that the result seems an unchallengeable fact, not merely the record of a photographer’s opinion; yet the picture itself should possess a taut athletic grace, an inherent structure, that gives it a life in metaphor†. There have been impressive photographers whose work can be considered literate, authoritative and transcendent, such as those of Weegee, Helen Levitt, Homer Page, Gordon Parks, Roy DeCarava, Robert Frank, and others. The works of these photographers convey the mixed artistic mood of the postwar period. The most subjective artistic photography of the period is seen in the work of Frederick Sommer, Minor White, Harry Callahan, and Aaron Siskind, while the art of applied photography is exemplified in fashion and portrait images by Richard Avedon, Irving Penn, Arnold Newman, and others. Thus, Susan Sontag seems to be somewhat pessimistically judgmental in holding that there is no one who understands what it means to be literate, authoritative and transcendent.Susan Sontag compares the works of Edward Steichen and Diane Arbus. Steichen’s work was aimed at showing all human is one and that human beings are attractive creatures. Steichen’s choice of photographs assumes a human condition or a human nature shared by everybody. Individuals are born work laugh and die everywhere in the same way. Arbus showed that this is a world in which everybody is an alien, hopelessly isolated, and immobilized, in mechanical crippled identities and relationships. Diane Arbus aimed at showing that all human is one and that human beings are horrific monsters. According to Sontag, while Steichen universalized the human condition into joy, Arbus universalized it into horror. Everybody Arbus photographed was a freak. This argument can be refuted. The main complaint Sontag places against Arbus is that she chose ugliness and horror subjects, made them pose, and took frontal pictures that were grotesque. Sontag , with an air of disapproval, claimed that Arbus’ work â€Å"lined up assorted monsters and borderline cases-most of them ugly; wearing grotesque or unflattering clothing; in dismal or barren surroundings’. Sontag says that Arbus interest in freaks expresses a desire to violate her own innocence, to undermine her sense of being privileged, to vent her frustration at being safe. This accusation by Sontag does not have any truth in it. Arbus’ work took a dark turn in her final works when her mental health deteriorated and that was seen in the collected grouped as â€Å"Untitled, 1970-71† in the retrospective organized by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art that showed at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art in spring 2005. In her early works, Arbus brought out humanity in her subjects and coaxed out their personality. Sontag says that â€Å"Anybody Arbus photographed was a freak,† citing, as one of several examples, a boy waiting to march in a pro-war march wearing a â€Å"Bomb Hanoi† button. This earnest young man is definitely not a freak. The picture is of a naà ¯ve, fresh-scrubbed boy, rather typical of the 1960s, and shows the young man as he is. No doubt he is shown as ignorant and absurd in his act of wearing the Bomb Hanoi button, but he cannot be considered a â€Å"freak,† when the truth is that many Americans, sadly, supported the Vietnam War. One of the best pictures of Arbus is â€Å"The 1938 Debutante of the Year at Home, Boston, 1966,† a picture of an extremely privileged woman well into the transition from middle age to seniority smoking in her bed. Every pore of this woman exudes privilege, captured in astonishing clarity by Arbus, a perhaps unequaled master of technique (Dolack, 2006). This woman would not have considered herself a ‘freak’. Another photo that Sontag did specifically mention is the â€Å"human pincushion† of New Jersey, a middle-aged man who, while demonstrating his specialty, nonetheless is very proud. The privileged once-debutante and the circus performer are both comfortable with themselves and thus in front of the camera.Also evident in her attack on Arbus is the fact that Sontag considers the aim of a photograph is to make something beautiful. Well, one can disagree with this statement. A photograph doesn’t necessarily make something beautiful. Consider, for example, Garry Winogrand’s picture of a legless veteran surrounded by pedestrians on a busy New York street. It’s a very strong picture, compelling and well-made. Yet, the ugliness of that man’s situation is not only exposed but amplified. Then consider Winogrand’s picture of a black man looking at a rhinoceros in a zoo – the animal’s horn is missing and what’s left in its place is ugly and disturbing, as is the recognition seen in the man’s face. Thus, two photographers whose work quickly refutes S ontag’s contention are Robert Frank and Garry Winogrand. There are several others. Arbus explains: â€Å"Most people go through life dreading they’ll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They’ve already passed their test in life. They’re aristocrats.† These words show clearly that Arbus’s personal and intellectual attractions to oddities of nature and society convey a responsiveness that is also a sense of responsibility (Schjeldahl, 2005).Thus in the essay â€Å"America Seen through Photographs Darkly† Susan Sontag makes some intellectual observations and some controversial statements. While it is true that realism in American photography has been mystifying to a certain extent and every person is given importance in a photograph, it is false that there have been no photographers who understand the meaning of making a photograph ‘literate, authoritative and transcendent† Sontag is false in her claim that photographs should aim to capture the beautiful; – and false in her attacks on Arbus. Susan Sontag Essay Thank you for reading this Sample! Susan Sontag Essay Example Essay Example Susan Sontag Essay Example Paper Susan Sontag Essay Introduction In the essay titled â€Å"America Seen through Photographs Darkly† Susan Sontag discusses the advent of realism, the misinterpretations of realism, and the acceptance of surrealism as a substitute for realism in the realm of photography in America. Sontag chooses the thoughts of Walt Whitman to provide a framework for studying the works of photographers from the 1930s to the 1960s. In so doing, Susan Sontag makes many controversial statements. While some may be accepted logically, there are others which can be refuted. What is significant however is that Susan Sontag through this essay creates awareness of what beauty and importance means, and of what realism means in the context of photography.Walt Whitman perceived the democratic values of culture as that which existed beyond the contexts of beauty and ugliness, importance and triviality. According to Walt Whitman, nobody would fret about beauty and ugliness. The views of Walt Whitman changed the view of artists in many fiel ds dramatically. Artists took seriously Whitman’s program of populist transcendence of the democratic transvaluation of beauty and ugliness, importance and triviality. This resulted in an inclination to portray reality as it was rather than focusing only on traditional concepts of beauty. In the case of photography, this desire, instead of resulting in demystification of reality has resulted in a mystification of the art according to Sontag. This argument of Sontag is further strengthened by Susie Linfield who says that though photographs (of humanism) don’t explain the way the world works ..it’s true that photographs document the specific, they tend, also, to blur—dangerously blur—political and historic distinctions†. She explains this with the example. A photograph of a bombed-out apartment building in Berlin, circa 1945, looks much like a photograph of a bombed-out apartment building in Hanoi, circa 1969, which looks awfully similar to a p hotograph of a bombed-out apartment building in Baghdad from last week.This is a mystifying aspect of realism. Further according to Susie Linfield, people generally approach photographs, first and foremost, on an emotional level. She points out that Brecht regarded all feeling as dishonest and dangerous. In the book â€Å"Witness Iraq: A War Journal February–April 20003† there is one image showing six women in a cemetery outside Baghdad. The picture was taken by Jerome Delay, a French war photographer for the Associated Press and the caption tells us, â€Å"Relatives of Mohammed Jaber Hassan weep over his coffin . . . Hassan, 22, died when a bomb fell on a busy market in Baghdad’s Shula district.† Because the picture is dated â€Å"03/29/03,† we know that the bomb was probably an American one and that it was dropped on the civilian marketplace almost certainly by accident. If the picture were dated 2006, then, it would imply that the bomb was plant ed by insurgents in Iraq (Linfield, 2006). Thus, we can conclude that Susan Sontag is very right in pointing to the mystification that happens when photographers become humanistic in approach.Sontag says, â€Å"To photograph is to confer importance. No moment is more important than any other moment; no person is more interesting than any other person†. One of the most talked about photographs of recent times is the picture of an anonymous Afghan refugee woman taken by photographer Steve McCurry for the cover of National Geographic Magazine June 1985. The photograph showed the piercing stare of a young woman peering from a bedraggled cloak. The piercing green eyes epitomized the tragic story of dispossessed children everywhere and the image became a 20th-century icon. It was only recently in 2002, that Steve McCurry could trace her back and found that the woman’s name was Sharbat Gula (Connor, 2002).â€Å"Whitman thought he was not abolishing beauty but generalizing it . So, for generations, did the most gifted American photographers, in their polemical pursuit of the trivial and the vulgar†. Susan Sontag talks about Walker Evans as the last great photographer to have worked seriously in mood derived from Whitman’s euphoric humanism. She says that Evans was not as arty as Stieglitz. In the words of Sontag, â€Å"Evans sought a more impersonal kind of affirmation, a noble reticence, and a lucid understatement†. She justifies her statement that Evans was not arty by pointing out that Evan never tried to express himself in the photographs (like an artist does). He took photographs of architectural still life of American facades and exacting portraits of Southern sharecroppers in the 1930s. This view of Sontag is supported by Lincoln Kirstein who wrote ‘Looked at in sequence they are overwhelming in their exhaustiveness of detail, their poetry of contrast, and, for those who wish to see it, their moral implication†. Thi s explains why Sontag said that Evan’s project seemed to descend from Whitman. Evans project showed a leveling of discriminations between the beautiful and the ugly. Sontag further makes the point that everything is morally equivalent to a photograph. Evans wanted his works to be literate, authoritative and transcendent. Whitman preached empathy, concord in discord oneness in diversity. This message of identification with other Americans links Whitman and Evans in a subtle manner.â€Å"The moral universe of the 1930s being no longer ours, these adjectives are barely creditable today. Nobody demands that photography be literate. Nobody can imagine how it could be authoritative. Nobody understands how anything, least of all a photograph, could be transcendent†. John Szarkowski, in his introduction to â€Å"Walker Evans† explains the meaning thus: â€Å"The photographer must define his subject with an educated awareness of what it is and what it means; he must des cribe it with such simplicity and sureness that the result seems an unchallengeable fact, not merely the record of a photographer’s opinion; yet the picture itself should possess a taut athletic grace, an inherent structure, that gives it a life in metaphor†. There have been impressive photographers whose work can be considered literate, authoritative and transcendent, such as those of Weegee, Helen Levitt, Homer Page, Gordon Parks, Roy DeCarava, Robert Frank, and others. The works of these photographers convey the mixed artistic mood of the postwar period. The most subjective artistic photography of the period is seen in the work of Frederick Sommer, Minor White, Harry Callahan, and Aaron Siskind, while the art of applied photography is exemplified in fashion and portrait images by Richard Avedon, Irving Penn, Arnold Newman, and others. Thus, Susan Sontag seems to be somewhat pessimistically judgmental in holding that there is no one who understands what it means to be literate, authoritative and transcendent.Susan Sontag compares the works of Edward Steichen and Diane Arbus. Steichen’s work was aimed at showing all human is one and that human beings are attractive creatures. Steichen’s choice of photographs assumes a human condition or a human nature shared by everybody. Individuals are born work laugh and die everywhere in the same way. Arbus showed that this is a world in which everybody is an alien, hopelessly isolated, and immobilized, in mechanical crippled identities and relationships. Diane Arbus aimed at showing that all human is one and that human beings are horrific monsters. According to Sontag, while Steichen universalized the human condition into joy, Arbus universalized it into horror. Everybody Arbus photographed was a freak. This argument can be refuted. The main complaint Sontag places against Arbus is that she chose ugliness and horror subjects, made them pose, and took frontal pictures that were grotesque. Sontag , with an air of disapproval, claimed that Arbus’ work â€Å"lined up assorted monsters and borderline cases-most of them ugly; wearing grotesque or unflattering clothing; in dismal or barren surroundings’. Sontag says that Arbus interest in freaks expresses a desire to violate her own innocence, to undermine her sense of being privileged, to vent her frustration at being safe. This accusation by Sontag does not have any truth in it. Arbus’ work took a dark turn in her final works when her mental health deteriorated and that was seen in the collected grouped as â€Å"Untitled, 1970-71† in the retrospective organized by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art that showed at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art in spring 2005. In her early works, Arbus brought out humanity in her subjects and coaxed out their personality. Sontag says that â€Å"Anybody Arbus photographed was a freak,† citing, as one of several examples, a boy waiting to march in a pro-war march wearing a â€Å"Bomb Hanoi† button. This earnest young man is definitely not a freak. The picture is of a naà ¯ve, fresh-scrubbed boy, rather typical of the 1960s, and shows the young man as he is. No doubt he is shown as ignorant and absurd in his act of wearing the Bomb Hanoi button, but he cannot be considered a â€Å"freak,† when the truth is that many Americans, sadly, supported the Vietnam War. One of the best pictures of Arbus is â€Å"The 1938 Debutante of the Year at Home, Boston, 1966,† a picture of an extremely privileged woman well into the transition from middle age to seniority smoking in her bed. Every pore of this woman exudes privilege, captured in astonishing clarity by Arbus, a perhaps unequaled master of technique (Dolack, 2006). This woman would not have considered herself a ‘freak’. Another photo that Sontag did specifically mention is the â€Å"human pincushion† of New Jersey, a middle-aged man who, while demonstrating his specialty, nonetheless is very proud. The privileged once-debutante and the circus performer are both comfortable with themselves and thus in front of the camera.Also evident in her attack on Arbus is the fact that Sontag considers the aim of a photograph is to make something beautiful. Well, one can disagree with this statement. A photograph doesn’t necessarily make something beautiful. Consider, for example, Garry Winogrand’s picture of a legless veteran surrounded by pedestrians on a busy New York street. It’s a very strong picture, compelling and well-made. Yet, the ugliness of that man’s situation is not only exposed but amplified. Then consider Winogrand’s picture of a black man looking at a rhinoceros in a zoo – the animal’s horn is missing and what’s left in its place is ugly and disturbing, as is the recognition seen in the man’s face. Thus, two photographers whose work quickly refutes S ontag’s contention are Robert Frank and Garry Winogrand. There are several others. Arbus explains: â€Å"Most people go through life dreading they’ll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They’ve already passed their test in life. They’re aristocrats.† These words show clearly that Arbus’s personal and intellectual attractions to oddities of nature and society convey a responsiveness that is also a sense of responsibility (Schjeldahl, 2005).Thus in the essay â€Å"America Seen through Photographs Darkly† Susan Sontag makes some intellectual observations and some controversial statements. While it is true that realism in American photography has been mystifying to a certain extent and every person is given importance in a photograph, it is false that there have been no photographers who understand the meaning of making a photograph ‘literate, authoritative and transcendent† Sontag is false in her claim that photographs should aim to capture the beautiful; – and false in her attacks on Arbus. Susan Sontag Essay Thank you for reading this Sample! Susan Sontag Essay Example Essay Example Susan Sontag Essay Example Paper Susan Sontag Essay Introduction In the essay titled â€Å"America Seen through Photographs Darkly† Susan Sontag discusses the advent of realism, the misinterpretations of realism, and the acceptance of surrealism as a substitute for realism in the realm of photography in America. Sontag chooses the thoughts of Walt Whitman to provide a framework for studying the works of photographers from the 1930s to the 1960s. In so doing, Susan Sontag makes many controversial statements. While some may be accepted logically, there are others which can be refuted. What is significant however is that Susan Sontag through this essay creates awareness of what beauty and importance means, and of what realism means in the context of photography.Walt Whitman perceived the democratic values of culture as that which existed beyond the contexts of beauty and ugliness, importance and triviality. According to Walt Whitman, nobody would fret about beauty and ugliness. The views of Walt Whitman changed the view of artists in many fiel ds dramatically. Artists took seriously Whitman’s program of populist transcendence of the democratic transvaluation of beauty and ugliness, importance and triviality. This resulted in an inclination to portray reality as it was rather than focusing only on traditional concepts of beauty. In the case of photography, this desire, instead of resulting in demystification of reality has resulted in a mystification of the art according to Sontag. This argument of Sontag is further strengthened by Susie Linfield who says that though photographs (of humanism) don’t explain the way the world works ..it’s true that photographs document the specific, they tend, also, to blur—dangerously blur—political and historic distinctions†. She explains this with the example. A photograph of a bombed-out apartment building in Berlin, circa 1945, looks much like a photograph of a bombed-out apartment building in Hanoi, circa 1969, which looks awfully similar to a p hotograph of a bombed-out apartment building in Baghdad from last week.This is a mystifying aspect of realism. Further according to Susie Linfield, people generally approach photographs, first and foremost, on an emotional level. She points out that Brecht regarded all feeling as dishonest and dangerous. In the book â€Å"Witness Iraq: A War Journal February–April 20003† there is one image showing six women in a cemetery outside Baghdad. The picture was taken by Jerome Delay, a French war photographer for the Associated Press and the caption tells us, â€Å"Relatives of Mohammed Jaber Hassan weep over his coffin . . . Hassan, 22, died when a bomb fell on a busy market in Baghdad’s Shula district.† Because the picture is dated â€Å"03/29/03,† we know that the bomb was probably an American one and that it was dropped on the civilian marketplace almost certainly by accident. If the picture were dated 2006, then, it would imply that the bomb was plant ed by insurgents in Iraq (Linfield, 2006). Thus, we can conclude that Susan Sontag is very right in pointing to the mystification that happens when photographers become humanistic in approach.Sontag says, â€Å"To photograph is to confer importance. No moment is more important than any other moment; no person is more interesting than any other person†. One of the most talked about photographs of recent times is the picture of an anonymous Afghan refugee woman taken by photographer Steve McCurry for the cover of National Geographic Magazine June 1985. The photograph showed the piercing stare of a young woman peering from a bedraggled cloak. The piercing green eyes epitomized the tragic story of dispossessed children everywhere and the image became a 20th-century icon. It was only recently in 2002, that Steve McCurry could trace her back and found that the woman’s name was Sharbat Gula (Connor, 2002).â€Å"Whitman thought he was not abolishing beauty but generalizing it . So, for generations, did the most gifted American photographers, in their polemical pursuit of the trivial and the vulgar†. Susan Sontag talks about Walker Evans as the last great photographer to have worked seriously in mood derived from Whitman’s euphoric humanism. She says that Evans was not as arty as Stieglitz. In the words of Sontag, â€Å"Evans sought a more impersonal kind of affirmation, a noble reticence, and a lucid understatement†. She justifies her statement that Evans was not arty by pointing out that Evan never tried to express himself in the photographs (like an artist does). He took photographs of architectural still life of American facades and exacting portraits of Southern sharecroppers in the 1930s. This view of Sontag is supported by Lincoln Kirstein who wrote ‘Looked at in sequence they are overwhelming in their exhaustiveness of detail, their poetry of contrast, and, for those who wish to see it, their moral implication†. Thi s explains why Sontag said that Evan’s project seemed to descend from Whitman. Evans project showed a leveling of discriminations between the beautiful and the ugly. Sontag further makes the point that everything is morally equivalent to a photograph. Evans wanted his works to be literate, authoritative and transcendent. Whitman preached empathy, concord in discord oneness in diversity. This message of identification with other Americans links Whitman and Evans in a subtle manner.â€Å"The moral universe of the 1930s being no longer ours, these adjectives are barely creditable today. Nobody demands that photography be literate. Nobody can imagine how it could be authoritative. Nobody understands how anything, least of all a photograph, could be transcendent†. John Szarkowski, in his introduction to â€Å"Walker Evans† explains the meaning thus: â€Å"The photographer must define his subject with an educated awareness of what it is and what it means; he must des cribe it with such simplicity and sureness that the result seems an unchallengeable fact, not merely the record of a photographer’s opinion; yet the picture itself should possess a taut athletic grace, an inherent structure, that gives it a life in metaphor†. There have been impressive photographers whose work can be considered literate, authoritative and transcendent, such as those of Weegee, Helen Levitt, Homer Page, Gordon Parks, Roy DeCarava, Robert Frank, and others. The works of these photographers convey the mixed artistic mood of the postwar period. The most subjective artistic photography of the period is seen in the work of Frederick Sommer, Minor White, Harry Callahan, and Aaron Siskind, while the art of applied photography is exemplified in fashion and portrait images by Richard Avedon, Irving Penn, Arnold Newman, and others. Thus, Susan Sontag seems to be somewhat pessimistically judgmental in holding that there is no one who understands what it means to be literate, authoritative and transcendent.Susan Sontag compares the works of Edward Steichen and Diane Arbus. Steichen’s work was aimed at showing all human is one and that human beings are attractive creatures. Steichen’s choice of photographs assumes a human condition or a human nature shared by everybody. Individuals are born work laugh and die everywhere in the same way. Arbus showed that this is a world in which everybody is an alien, hopelessly isolated, and immobilized, in mechanical crippled identities and relationships. Diane Arbus aimed at showing that all human is one and that human beings are horrific monsters. According to Sontag, while Steichen universalized the human condition into joy, Arbus universalized it into horror. Everybody Arbus photographed was a freak. This argument can be refuted. The main complaint Sontag places against Arbus is that she chose ugliness and horror subjects, made them pose, and took frontal pictures that were grotesque. Sontag , with an air of disapproval, claimed that Arbus’ work â€Å"lined up assorted monsters and borderline cases-most of them ugly; wearing grotesque or unflattering clothing; in dismal or barren surroundings’. Sontag says that Arbus interest in freaks expresses a desire to violate her own innocence, to undermine her sense of being privileged, to vent her frustration at being safe. This accusation by Sontag does not have any truth in it. Arbus’ work took a dark turn in her final works when her mental health deteriorated and that was seen in the collected grouped as â€Å"Untitled, 1970-71† in the retrospective organized by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art that showed at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art in spring 2005. In her early works, Arbus brought out humanity in her subjects and coaxed out their personality. Sontag says that â€Å"Anybody Arbus photographed was a freak,† citing, as one of several examples, a boy waiting to march in a pro-war march wearing a â€Å"Bomb Hanoi† button. This earnest young man is definitely not a freak. The picture is of a naà ¯ve, fresh-scrubbed boy, rather typical of the 1960s, and shows the young man as he is. No doubt he is shown as ignorant and absurd in his act of wearing the Bomb Hanoi button, but he cannot be considered a â€Å"freak,† when the truth is that many Americans, sadly, supported the Vietnam War. One of the best pictures of Arbus is â€Å"The 1938 Debutante of the Year at Home, Boston, 1966,† a picture of an extremely privileged woman well into the transition from middle age to seniority smoking in her bed. Every pore of this woman exudes privilege, captured in astonishing clarity by Arbus, a perhaps unequaled master of technique (Dolack, 2006). This woman would not have considered herself a ‘freak’. Another photo that Sontag did specifically mention is the â€Å"human pincushion† of New Jersey, a middle-aged man who, while demonstrating his specialty, nonetheless is very proud. The privileged once-debutante and the circus performer are both comfortable with themselves and thus in front of the camera.Also evident in her attack on Arbus is the fact that Sontag considers the aim of a photograph is to make something beautiful. Well, one can disagree with this statement. A photograph doesn’t necessarily make something beautiful. Consider, for example, Garry Winogrand’s picture of a legless veteran surrounded by pedestrians on a busy New York street. It’s a very strong picture, compelling and well-made. Yet, the ugliness of that man’s situation is not only exposed but amplified. Then consider Winogrand’s picture of a black man looking at a rhinoceros in a zoo – the animal’s horn is missing and what’s left in its place is ugly and disturbing, as is the recognition seen in the man’s face. Thus, two photographers whose work quickly refutes S ontag’s contention are Robert Frank and Garry Winogrand. There are several others. Arbus explains: â€Å"Most people go through life dreading they’ll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They’ve already passed their test in life. They’re aristocrats.† These words show clearly that Arbus’s personal and intellectual attractions to oddities of nature and society convey a responsiveness that is also a sense of responsibility (Schjeldahl, 2005).Thus in the essay â€Å"America Seen through Photographs Darkly† Susan Sontag makes some intellectual observations and some controversial statements. While it is true that realism in American photography has been mystifying to a certain extent and every person is given importance in a photograph, it is false that there have been no photographers who understand the meaning of making a photograph ‘literate, authoritative and transcendent† Sontag is false in her claim that photographs should aim to capture the beautiful; – and false in her attacks on Arbus. Susan Sontag Essay Thank you for reading this Sample!

Anatomy and Physiology Lab Report Essay Example

Anatomy and Physiology Lab Report Essay Example Anatomy and Physiology Lab Report Paper Anatomy and Physiology Lab Report Paper This document is not meant to be a substitute for a formal laboratory report. The Lab Report Assistant is simply a summary of the experiment’s questions, diagrams if needed, and data tables that should be addressed in a formal lab report. The intent is to facilitate students’ writing of lab reports by providing this information in an editable file which can be sent to an instructor. Purpose: What is the purpose of this exercise? The learn about the different joints our bodies consist of and how those joints help our bodies function and move. Are there any safety concerns associated with this exercise? If so, list what they are and what precautions should be taken. Exercise 1: Questions As you observe the skull, explain how the structure of the sutures between the cranial bones is related to the overall function of the cranium. The sutures help hold the cranial bones in one piece, because they are almost interlocking the bones are able to snap together and make what almost seems like a solid piece of bone. Why are synarthroses an important component of fibrous joints? Synarthroses joints are used for functionality and are immovable which works perfect for fibrous joints which in most cases do not want or need to be moved. Exercise 2: Questions Cartilaginous joints exhibit amphiarthroses. Why is this important? Amphiarthroses joints are slightly moveable which works perfectly with cartilaginous joints because where cartilaginous joints are located, such as the top 5 ribs, need to be somewhat flexible. Structurally, how are cartilaginous joints similar? They are all slightly moveable and a piece of cartilage connects the bone ends, Exercise 3: Questions Which type of synovial joint has the least amount of movement? The gliding joint such as the joints between the carpals and tarsals. Why are diarthroses important for synovial joints? Synovial joints must move freely and the diarthoses are the only joints that are capable of moving freely, allowing for all types of movement. Which synovial joint is most movable? The ball and socket joint is the most moveable joint in the body because of its ability to fully rotate. What are the four structural characteristics that all synovial joints share? A two layered articular capsule which helps create the joint cavity, inside the capsule is the synovial membrane which contains the synovial fluid, the articular cartilage covers the surface of the bones forming the joint and ligaments that reinforce the capsule. Exercise 4: Questions Which of the body movements was the most difficult to perform? Why? I suppose the hardest one to perform was the circumduction because it combines all the different types of movements including flexion, extension, abduction, adduction. Hinge joints like the elbow and knee have limited movement. Why are these types of joints more prone to injury? Because these joints accidentally being moved a different way can hurt the bone, cartilage and or ligaments. When performing flexion on the arm, the biceps muscle (on the anterior of the arm) contracts. What happens to the triceps muscle (on the posterior of the arm) as this action is performed? I don’t feel that it does anything, so i suppose it just relaxes, when performing extension I can feel the triceps get tight. Both the shoulder and the hip are ball and socket joints. Why does the shoulder have a greater range of motion than the hip? The hip joint is much deeper set than the shoulder joint, the hip joint also contains strong ligaments and thicker muscles surrounding than the shoulder, the shoulder is meant more for mobility whereas the hips were meant more for stability. Exercise 5: obseRvations Sketch your chicken wing: Label the bones, muscles, tendons and joints. Questions What effect will the tearing of a tendon have on its corresponding muscle? Muscles are attached to bones through tendons, if a tendon is torn it will not be able to allow the muscle proper movement and flexion. Why are ligaments harder to heal than tendons? Ligaments are harder to heal because they have less blood supply than tendons Compare and contrast tendons and ligaments. Bones are attached to other bones by ligaments and muscles are attached to bones by tendons. Ligaments and tendons are made out of dense connective tissue, but ligaments have better vascularization. Both ligaments and tendons provide support and stability for synovial joints. What is the function of fascia? Depending on the type of fascia depends on the function it serves. But the main function when comparing it to tendons and ligaments is that it is a connective tissue that surrounds muscles and other structures while holding them together. What effect would the loss of articular cartilage have on a joint, its bones and their corresponding muscles? The joints would rub together causing grinding and friction and not allowing the joint to smoothly glide over each other. Because of the friction, the muscles will become over worked trying to compensate for the loss of smoothness. Conclusions Explain how skin, bones, and muscles are related to each other.Why is this  relationship important to the understanding of the skeletal and muscular systems? Slowly as this class goes on we realize that every part of our body is connected. Our muscles are connected to our bones, and our skin covers all of our muscles. Each work together to keep a stable living environment for our bodies. The homeostasis of our bodies are dependent on each function working properly and well together.

A cross cultural management study on Toyota

A cross cultural management study on Toyota The aim of this paper is to identify what role culture has played in the organizational structure and management technique of Toyota. Toyota is now the world’s leading automobile industry, knocking out rivals car maker; General Motors (Marr, 2009). The Toyota Motor Company was established in 1937 and 30 years later it entered the US market in 1967. By 1980, the company already had about 20% of the US car market as the indigenous car companies started experiencing customer dissatisfaction. The company based its entrant strategy into the US on the following; Fuel efficiency as compared to ‘gas guzzling’ American cars Environmental friendliness Superior build quality The introduction of the luxury-car line The real reason for the company’s success nevertheless was based on the introduction of Japanese style of production, operation and management. According to Liker and Morgan (2006), management principles must extend beyond the shop floor as they do at Toyot a. The ‘Toyota Way’ is a set of standards that harness the Toyota (Japanese) culture. These standards are applied by the Japanese in virtually all their dealings. Although they are moderate by nature hardly showing emotions, they are still very thorough and they apply the successful cultural traits in almost everything they do. The most important aspect of Toyota America is the techniques the company has used to stay successful given the obvious cultural differences between Toyota Japan and its biggest foreign subsidiary. The Japanese and the Americans have distinctly different business cultures however; the company has been able to work in harmony for decades. The major differences are; communication skills, winning attitude, methodology of maintaining strategies etc for both the countries – Japan and United States. Thus, we can say that while establishing a new company in host country culture is highly important. HOME-COUNTRY BUSINESS VALUES (JAPAN) Managerial Autonomy and Long-term Planning Very often, Japanese employees are engaged to the companies for ‘lifetime employment’. It is therefore probable that managers are not pressured to meet requirements financially and employee related. Corporate Rigidity and Hierarchy Japanese companies like Toyota are very hierarchical in nature and as such have distinctive and autonomous power bases. The roles of top managers are defined and incline towards strategic development of the company. The business unit managers are the ones responsible for initiating and supervising new projects. Participatory Decision-making The practice of exploring ideas of employees by senior management is known as Nemawashi in a given project. The idea behind the Nemawashi is to obtain participation of all employees in the decision-making process. The Japanese style of management is a bottom-up approach as compared to the rather autocratic top-down style of management. HOST-COUNTRY BUSINESS VALUES (UNITED ST ATES) Low Context There is more or less an uncongenial nature of communication in American organizations. Expectations of employees are communicated in competency statements or the criteria of their performance. On the other hand however, the Japanese may be more contained in their communication. Individualism Employees and indeed managers in the United States are often defined by their personal achievements and place little importance in group achievements. Americans also do not place much value on trust as they are likely to engage in business with strangers not necessarily friends or family unlike their Japanese collectivist counterparts.

Successful Knowledge Worker Teams-Sheila Coursework

Successful Knowledge Worker Teams-Sheila - Coursework Example People and organizations adopt the Six Cs of Global Collaboration to enable them ensure they work together with their partners in different parts of the world. The three key factors of success for the globally distributed worker teams that I will illustrate are convergence, coordination, and communication. The goals and directives are maintained to be the same for all workers through convergence. A coordinated team ensures teamwork is organized as the team is kept up-to-date by communication. This paper will highlight convergence, coordination and communication as key elements that contribute to the success of knowledge worker teams. The ability of every team member to keep a clear purpose and shared priorities is what is considered in this case. Convergence is among the factors that are considered as the key elements that contribute to the success of knowledge worker teams distributed around the world. There are various reasons why one would be persuaded to ensure his or her team is convergent. The first reason is the fact that clear purpose among the team players is ensured through convergence. The objectives of each member involved in the team are usually directed to one clear goal same as that of the team. Every team leader wants to see his or her team working on one main objective of the team (Cochrane, 2014). Lack of deviation from the goal of the team puts the workers focused towards good performance. Therefore, every team leadership advocates for convergence of the relevant stakeholders of the team. Another main reason why convergence is critical for the success of knowledge worker teams is the fact that when the team is converged it will have shared set of priorities among the members of the team. It is important to have similar priorities as a team since the destructions that cause delayed performance can be avoided (De Felice, 2013). For example,

Introduction to Networking Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Introduction to Networking - Essay Example Token Ring describes a Local Area Network (LAN) technology in which stations are organized in a ring topology. In Token Ring, data transmission occurs sequentially from a ring station to the next; initialization of a ring is achieved through circulating a token. When using Token Ring, a station has to capture the token in order to gain the right to transmit data onto the ring. Initial Token Ring products operated at 4 Mbps. However, the 802.5 standard has advanced and supports an operation of 16 Mbps (Carlo, 1998). The Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI) refers to a 100 mbps technology, which uses the LAN network and is usually linked through a fiber optic cable. This technology is used in situations where networks require a high speed bandwidth, and require covering vast distances compared to those covered by the copper wires. There are two networks under this category; fiber optic wire based and copper distributed data interface (Gallo & Hancock, 2002). The information I have learnt is useful in the future since I can teach others, who do not have this knowledge. I struggled with trying to understand the differences between the networks architectures presented in this assignment. I discovered that a person can use network bridge devices in extending Ethernet networks. What I can share with fellow students is that diagrams help to understand networking concepts in a superior

Research Spotlight on Homework Essay Example for Free

Research Spotlight on Homework Essay Some researchers are urging schools to take a fresh look at homework and its potential for engaging students and improving student performance. The key, they say, is to take into account grade-specific and developmental factors when determining the amount and kind of homework. So, whats appropriate? What benefits can be expected? What makes for good homework policies? Research doesnt have all the answers, but a review of some existing data yields some helpful observations and guidance. How Much Homework Do Students Do? Survey data and anecdotal evidence show that some students spend hours nightly doing homework. Homework overload is the exception rather than the norm; however, according to research from the Brookings Institution and the Rand Corporation (see the Brown Center 2003 below). Their researchers analyzed data from a variety of sources and concluded that the majority of U.S. students spend less than an hour a day on homework, regardless of grade level, and this has held true for most of the past 50 years. In the last 20 years, homework has increased only in the lower grade levels, and this increase is associated with neutral (and sometimes negative) effects on student achievement. How Much Is Appropriate? The National PTA recommendations fall in line with general guidelines suggested by researcher Harris Cooper: 10-20 minutes per night in the first grade, and an additional 10 minutes per grade level thereafter (e.g., 20 minutes for second grade, 120 minutes for twelfth). High school students may sometimes do more, depending on what classes they take (see Review of Educational Research, 2006). What are the benefits? Homework usually falls into one of three categories: practice, preparation, or extension. The purpose usually varies by grade. Individualized assignments that tap into students existing skills or interests can be motivating. At the elementary school level, homework can help students develop study skills and habits and can keep families informed about their childs learning. At the secondary school level, student homework is associated with greater academic achievement. (Review of Educational Research, 2006) What’s good policy? Experts advise schools or districts to include teachers, parents, and students in any effort to set homework policies. Policies should address the purposes of homework; amount and frequency; school and teacher responsibilities; student responsibilities; and, the role of parents or others who assist students with homework. Reference: Cooper, H. (2003). A synthesis of research. Review of Educational Reseach, volume 76, Retrieved January 09, 2013, from http://www.nea.org/tools/16938.htm Reasons why students should not have homework Homework is supposed to ensure that all students retain the material covered in the classroom, but for many children it is an unnecessary chore and actually hinders their learning. Children learn best when they are interested in the subject. Positive mental attitude makes learning even challenging things much easier. Negative mental attitude, however, makes retaining knowledge harder and creates stress in a learner. It also takes much longer periods of time to complete. As a result children hardly have any time to develop their talents through extracurricular activities, or to spend adequate time with family and friends. Instead of being burdened with much resented huge loads of homework, children should have the opportunity for more self-directed and interactive learning at school to generate their interest and build in them positive attitude towards learning. Teachers should be more creative and use multimedia like computers and video presentations to make covered subjects more engaging involving childrens input more. Students should be allowed to suggest activities and projects they would like to do. In the present school system it is usually the teacher who decides what and how children should learn in class and at home. This promotes passivity and a sense that learning is a necessary evil rather than exiting opportunity to learn about the world we live in. This is very ineffective, making kids bored, stressed, and frustrated. Not to mention that it is often parents who do the reluctant kids homework therefore homework doesnt help them to learn at all. They get their grades, but end up having learning gaps that will come out later on and hinder their success. Children who are struggling themselves with loads of homework lack the time to develop other than academic passions and experience very unhealty stress that cen result even in a depression. The numbers of children who take antidepressants is rapidly growing. Students who are defiant about their homework often have very strained relationship with their parents. It is a source of contention in too many families and contributes to deep emotional problems in these children and also inevitably may cause depression and substance abuse. The age of kids taking street drugs is getting lower and lower. Children as young as ten in some countries have a drinking problem and homework overload can be an indirect cause of that. That is why I think students should not have homework, but be able to have enjoyable learning experience at school and freedom to be encouraged by the teacher to expand their knowledge on their own terms at home, and to be rewarded for the extra effort instead of being forced to do homework they dont like. Reference: Tehrani, E. (2009). Reasons why students should not have homework. Retrieved January 09, 2013, from http://www.helium.com/items/1309973-why-students-shoul-not-have-homework The Truth About Homework In high school, some studies do find a correlation between homework and test scores (or grades), but it’s usually fairly small, and it has a tendency to disappear when more sophisticated statistical controls are applied. Moreover, there’s no evidence that higher achievement is due to the homework even when an association does appear. It isn’t hard to think of other explanations for why successful students might be in classrooms where more homework is assigned—or why they might spend more time on it than their peers do. The results of national and international exams raise further doubts. One of many examples is an analysis of 1994 and 1999 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, or TIMSS, data from 50 countries. Researchers David P. Baker and Gerald K. LeTendre were scarcely able to conceal their surprise when they published their results last year: â€Å"Not only did we fail to find any positive relationships,† they wrote, but â€Å"the overall correlations between national average student achievement and national averages in [amount of homework assigned] are all negative.† Consider the assumption that homework should be beneficial just because it gives students more time to master a topic or skill. (Plenty of pundits rely on this premise when they call for extending the school day or year. Indeed, homework can be seen as a way of prolonging the school day on the cheap.) Unfortunately, this reasoning turns out to be woefully simplistic. Back â€Å"when experimental psychologists mainly studied words and nonsense syllables, it was thought that learning inevitably depended upon time,† the reading researcher Richard C. Anderson and his colleagues explain. But â€Å"subsequent research suggests that this belief is false.† The statement â€Å"People need time to learn things† is true, of course, but it doesn’t tell us much of practical value. On the other hand, the assertion â€Å"More time usually leads to better learning† is considerably more interesting. It’s also demonstrably untrue, however, because there are enough cases where more time doesn’t lead to better learning. In fact, more hours are least likely to produce better outcomes when understanding or creativity is involved. Anderson and his associates found that when children are taught to read by focusing on the meaning of the text (rather than primarily on phonetic skills), their learning does â€Å"not depend on amount of instructional time.† In math, too, as another group of researchers discovered, time on task is directly correlated to achievement only if both the activity and the outcome measure are focused on rote recall as opposed to problem-solving. Carole Ames of Michigan State University points out that it isn’t â€Å"quantitative changes in behavior†Ã¢â‚¬â€such as requiring students to spend more hours in front of books or worksheets—that help children learn better. Rather, it’s â€Å"qualitative changes in the ways students view themselves in relation to the task, engage in the process of learning, and then respond to the learning activities and situation.† In turn, these attitudes and responses emerge from the way teachers think about learning and, as a result, how they organize their classrooms. Assigning homework is unlikely to have a positive effect on any of these variables. We might say that education is less about how much the teacher covers than about what students can be helped to discover—and more time won’t help to bring about that shift. Regardless of ones criteria, there is no reason to think that most students would be at any sort of disadvantage if homework were sharply reduced or even eliminated. But even if practice is sometimes useful, we’re not entitled to conclude that homework of this type works for most students. It isn’t of any use for those who don’t understand what they’re doing. Such homework makes them feel stupid; gets them accustomed to doing things the wrong way (because what’s really â€Å"reinforced† are mistaken assumptions); and teaches them to conceal what they don’t know. At the same time, other students in the same class already have the skill down cold, so further practice for them is a waste of time. You’ve got some kids, then, who don’t need the practice, and others who can’t use it. Furthermore, even if practice were helpful for most students, that wouldn’t mean they needed to do it at home. In my research, I found a number of superb teachers (at different grade levels and with diverse instructional styles) who rarely, if ever, found it necessary to assign homework. Some not only didn’t feel a need to make students read, write, or do math at home; they preferred to have students do these things during class, where it was possible to observe, guide, and discuss. Finally, any theoretical benefit of practice homework must be weighed against the effect it has on students’ interest in learning. If slogging through worksheets dampens one’s desire to read or think, surely that wouldn’t be worth an incremental improvement in skills. And when an activity feels like drudgery, the quality of learning tends to suffer, too. That so many children regard homework as something to finish as quickly as possible—or even as a significant source of stress—helps explain why it appears not to offer any academic advantage even for those who obediently sit down and complete the tasks they’ve been assigned. All that research showing little value to homework may not be so surprising after all. Reference: Kohn, A. (2006). The truth about homework. Retrieved January 09, 2013, from http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2006/09/06/02kohn.h26.html?tkn=RVRFTkNGGXy32nbQpdGsSFt01V8aHU5cZ3wG

Essay on the Loneliness of J. Alfred Prufrock -- Love Song J. Alfred P

The Loneliness of J. Alfred Prufrock In "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock", written by T. S. Elliot in 1917, J. Alfred Prufrock makes the reader privy to his innermost thoughts on an evening out. Prufrock wants to lead the reader to an overwhelming question, raising expectations, but he is a bitterly disappointing man; he never asks the question. He lacks self-esteem, women are intimidating to him, and he is too much of a coward to ever be successful with women. The title is "The Love Song,", not "A Love Song." So whenever Prufrock is around women, he behaves the same way. He always has and always will. Because of his inability to change he will die a lonely man. Courting a woman includes trying to project a positive image of yourself. J. Alfred Prufrock's low self-esteem projects only negative images. First of all, he does not value his life, even though he refers to it as "the universe" (46), for it can be "measured out ...with coffee spoons" (51). Prufrock himself admits his love life is not leading anywhere. In the middle of trying to come up with the right words, to sweep a lady off her feet, he compares himself to a crab: "I should have been a pair of ragged claws / Scuttling across the floors of silent seas" (73-74). He moves sideways instead of forward. Prufrock's image of himself is his justification for not asking the overwhelming question. Who in her right mind would say yes to a man who is "ridiculous-- / Almost, at times, the Fool" (118-119). He is a man who thinks little of himself. Those sides of Prufrock's character are shown only to the reader. The ladies have to judge him on his appearance and his behavior during the evening out. He is an older man, his hair is growing thin, and he is skinny. Eve... ... peace of fruit. J. Alfred Prufrock lacks the courage to undertake anything with an uncertain outcome, such as relationships. At the end, J. Alfred Prufrock lets the reader in on a daydream of his: We have lingered in the chambers of the sea By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown Till human voices wake us, and we drown. (129-131) His daydream is about mermaids, a sexual figment of imagination, and even in his daydream he is not successful; human voices wake him before anything happens. And J. Alfred Prufrock agrees: I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each I do not think that they will sing to me. (124-125) Works Cited Elliot, T.S. "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." Literature: Reading, Reacting, Writing. Compact 3rd ed. Eds. Laurie G. Kirszner and Stephen R. Mandell. Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace, 1997. 781-785.