Visual Representation in Death with Dignity Storytelling
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
A BEAUTIFUL DEATH: VISUAL REPRESENTATION IN DEATH WITH DIGNITY STORYTELLING by DAVID M. STATON A DISSERTATION Presented to the School of Journalism and Communication and the Graduate School of the University of Oregon in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy June 2016 DISSERTATION APPROVAL PAGE Student: David M. Staton Title: A Beautiful Death: Visual Representation in Death With Dignity Storytelling This dissertation has been accepted and approved in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in the School of Journalism and Communication by: Julianne Newton Co-Chair Tom Bivins Co-Chair Chris Chavez Core Member Kate Mondloch Core Member and Scott L. Pratt Dean of the Graduate School Original approval signatures are on file with the University of Oregon Graduate School Degree awarded June 2016 !ii ©2016 David M. Staton !iii DISSERTATION ABSTRACT David M. Staton Doctor of Philosophy School of Journalism and Communication June 2016 Title: A Beautiful Death: Visual Representation in Death With Dignity Storytelling This dissertation takes as its central topic visual narratives in Death with Dignity Storytelling and posits the author’s ideas of a beautiful death and the heard gaze. Its methodology includes a textual analysis of such images, which in turn leads to a typology, and the use of a digital tool to “sum images” to test the veracity of the typology. What creates the impulse to look at images of pain, suffering the withering body, the compulsion to bear witness to misery? That question is in part answered by Sontag (2003) Regarding the Pain of Others—“we are spectators of calamities” (p. 18)—and is evident in the indefinite pronoun that hangs at the end of the slim volume’s title. Because it is in those others, that we see ourselves. A Beautiful Death: Visual Representation in Death With Dignity Storytelling considers two case studies as examination and proofs of its claims. !iv CURRICULUM VITAE NAME OF AUTHOR: David M. Staton GRADUATE AND UNDERGRADUATE SCHOOLS ATTENDED: University of Oregon, Eugene State University of New York, Purchase University of New Mexico, Albuquerque University of Oregon, Eugene DEGREES AWARDED Doctor of Philosophy, Media Studies, 2016, University of Oregon Master of Arts, Art History, 2007, State University of New York, Purchase Bachelor of Arts, Journalism, 1987, University of New Mexico AREAS OF SPECIAL INTEREST Visual Communication Sports Journalism, critical practices PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE Graduate Teaching Fellow, School of Journalism and Communication University of Oregon, Eugene 2012-2016 Adjunct instructor, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 2010-2012, 2014-2015 Adjunct professor, University of Miami, Oxford Ohio 2009-2010 GRANTS, AWARDS, AND HONORS Graduate Teaching Fellowship, School of Journalism and Communication, 2012-2016 Columbia Scholarship 2013-2016 Top Paper Award, International Communication Association Conference, 2015 !v Creative Projects Award, AEJMC Conference, 2014 Travel Award, AEJMC Conference, 2014 Graduate Teaching Assistant, State University of New York, Purchase, 1997-1998 Lange-Pepperday Scholarship, 1986 PUBLICATIONS “Photojournalism,” (invited), co-authored with SOJC Dean Julianne Newton, in Oxford Bibliographies in Communication, Patricia Moy ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, in press). “Lipsyte, the League, and ‘The Leader’: An Ombudsman’s Tale,” in The ESPN Effect: Exploring the Worldwide Leader in Sports, J. McGuire, G. G. Armfield, and A. Earnheardt eds. (New York: Peter Lang, 2015 publication). “‘All I Want for Christmas is You’: ‘Tis the Season for Holiday Romance,” co- authored with Kathleen M. Ryan in Friends, Lovers, Co-Workers, and Community: Everything I Know About Relationships I Learned from Television, Kathleen M. Ryan, Deborah A. Macey, Mary Erickson, and Noah J. Springer eds. (New York: Lexington, 2015 publication). “Mad Hatters: The Bad Dads of AMC,” in Television and the Self: Knowledge, Identity, and Media Representation, Kathleen M. Ryan and Deborah A. Macey eds. (New York: Lexington, 2013). Review, Photography History and Theory by Jae Emerling, Visual Communication Quarterly 21-3 (2014), 178-179. Review, Why Art Photography by Lucy Soutter, for Visual Studies 29-2 (2014), 221-222. Review, A Box of Photographs by Roger Grenier, for InVisible Culture, Issue 21 (2014), online https://ivc.lib.rochester.edu/portfolio/a-box-of-photographs/ Review, Surrealism and Photography in Czechoslovakia: On the Needles of Days by Krzysztof Fijalkowski, Michael Richardson and Ian Walker, for Visual Studies 29-2 (2014), 222-224. !vi For my mother, Dorothy, who always kept me reading and my wife, Kathleen, who never let me stop writing. !vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page I. INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................... 1 II. DRAWING BODIES OF EVIDENCE WITH LIGHT ................................. 14 Writing with light ...................................................................................... 15 Photographing Others................................................................................ 17 Photographing Illness ................................................................................ 22 Picturing Death.......................................................................................... 29 III. HOW WE THINK ABOUT PHOTOGRAPHS AS EXPERIENCE ............. 38 Philosophy and Photography .................................................................... 38 Let (in)experience be your guide............................................................... 42 Looking at photography............................................................................. 48 Picturing an idea ....................................................................................... 52 Assessing aesthetics .................................................................................. 53 Pulling it together ...................................................................................... 54 The Inner Voice.......................................................................................... 60 I hear it looks like this ............................................................................... 63 Research questions and hypothesis ........................................................... 66 IV. METHODS ................................................................................................... 68 Developing a typology .............................................................................. 69 Case studies Svart and Maynard ............................................................... 77 Proofing the Text/Summed Images ........................................................... 79 V. A TYPOLOGY OF DEATH WITH DIGNITY ............................................ 82 !viii Chapter Page Typology Process....................................................................................... 83 Observations ............................................................................................. 89 Tropes, patterns, themes ............................................................................ 101 Nature and the outdoors ............................................................................ 101 Celebration ................................................................................................ 102 Clasped hands and warm embrace ............................................................ 103 Friendship/companionship/family ............................................................ 105 Core variable ............................................................................................. 105 VI. CASE STUDY 1 ........................................................................................... 112 VII. CASE STUDY 2 ........................................................................................... 129 VIII. FINDINGS AND AN APPLIED METHOD ................................................ 146 Summing the picture.................................................................................. 148 IX. CONCLUSION AND AREAS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH ...................... 157 Limitations and Areas for Future Research .............................................. 158 Why? ......................................................................................................... 158 Who? ......................................................................................................... 159 What? ........................................................................................................ 161 Suggestions for Further Research/Limitations .......................................... 162 APPENDICES........................................................................................................... 167 A. TEMPLATE FOR TEXTUAL ANALYSIS................................................... 167 B. OVERALL FIELD NOTES........................................................................... 168 REFERENCES CITED ............................................................................................ 222 !ix LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page 2.1. J.T. Zealy, a daguerrotypist in South Carolina, photos of the “most African looking slaves”.......................................................................... 20 2.2. Lombroso’s photographs of criminal types, depicting criminal physiology .............................................................................................