Helicon, the UM History of Art Student Society, presents this 30-minute lecture geared toward undergraduate students. Today, Professor David Doris on "Disneyland 1955."

See Feb. 6 for Part II with Allan Sekula and Sally Stein. This two-part symposium explores new practices in documentary photography through the work of some of its most important contemporary practitioners. The first session is devoted to the work of Alec Soth. Soth (b. 1969) is a member of Magnum Photos. He rose to international prominence with the publication of his first monograph, Sleeping by the Mississippi, in 2004. A visual record of the people and things Soth encountered during his travels along the 2,300-mile river, it revealed Soth to be a new and important voice in the tradition of lyrical documentary developed by Walker Evans, Robert Frank, and others. Since then Soth has published NIAGARA (2006), Fashion Magazine (2007), Dog Days, Bogotá (2007) and The Last Days of W (2008), projects that have cemented his reputation of one of United States most important contemporary photographers. Soth’s work is represented in major public and private collections, including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis; and his photographs have been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions, including the 2004 Whitney and São Paulo Biennials. He is represented by Gagosian Gallery in New York and Weinstein Gallery in Minneapolis.

See Jan. 30 for Part I with Alec Soth. This symposium explores new practices in documentary photography through the work of one of its most important contemporary practitioners. Since the 1970s, Allan Sekula has been on the forefront of documentary practice, expanding our understanding of the photographic “objectivity” in his dual role as both photographer and theoretician. Among the many questions his work has raised are the following: How can socially and politically engaged photographers represent the effects of violence and exploitation without re-victimizing their subjects? Can photographs depict the hidden networks of power that today characterize global societies? And is it possible for photography to document the world and simultaneously make its spectators aware of the shifting and contextual nature of photographic meaning? By tackling these difficult questions in his work, Sekula has expanded both the practice and the concept of documentary photography for more than three decades. Sekula is to visit campus and introduce his most recent work, demonstrating why his practice of documentation remains among the most compelling of the early twenty-first century. There will be a “response” to the photographer by Michigan faculty members, demonstrating the influence of the photographer’s theory and practice on current scholarship.