This course will examine how visual stories affect the practice of human rights advocacy. With weekly documentary film screenings, we will examine the interconnectedness of advocacy and visual representations. Considering that documentaries make a claim to represent "the real," is there a commensurate way to visually represent human capacities for suffering and violence? What are the challenges that activists and filmmakers face when they are representing experiences and perspectives different than their own? How have visual representations of mass atrocities simultaneously informed and reformed the meanings we ascribe to such events?
Note: The class will meet on the following dates: September 11, 18 and October 2, 9, 16, 23.