The Pulitzer was a unique experience. It is rare that graduate students are allowed to participate in such an open forum with distinguished professors. While the professors inevitably talked the most, each graduate student contributed an opinions and arguments. The format of the prepared presentations worked well because it allowed each of us to raise provocative points that enriched the discussion. But the greatest stimulus was the diverse and thought-provoking pieces of the Pulitzer collection.

I spoke about the pose with regard to Warhol's 12 Wanted Men and Doris Salcedo's chairs. I began with the various dictionary definitions of "pose," which included posing for a photograph, posing a question, and putting on a false front. I moved on to Barthes' idea of the pose, namely that the subject inevitably changes when they become aware of being photographed. In Barthes' formulation (and Susan Sontag as well), the camera becomes a weapon that one "aims," "shoots," and "captures" its subject(s). In discussing Salcedo's chairs, the sitters are absent. There remains only the trace of the sitters, who were likely tortured while sitting. This sense of torture is conveyed through the mangled, twisted form of the chairs. Because the material of the chairs is so organic, appearing supple rather than hard, the viewer can easily imagine the violence done to the bodies that are now evident. Salcedo's chair represents the portrait of a pose of an absent sitter, rather than the subject who adopts a certain pose -- the issue that preoccupied Barthes. It is this inversion of the pose that makes Salcedo's work so compelling.