Dec 18, 2024  
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2024-2025 Undergraduate Catalog

AH 226 History of Photography

(4 Credits)
Photography has a unique status in our visual culture. Unlike other technologies of visualization, photography saturates everyday life, mass media, science, and fine art. Paradoxically, the medium’s pervasiveness can render it invisible – too commonplace to be noticed. The goal of this course is to enable you to truly see photography by exploring the medium’s technological, aesthetic, and sociopolitical histories. Thematic units investigate questions that have persistently plagued the medium since its invention circa 1830, including: Do photographs always tell the truth, or can they lie? What are the ethics of making and viewing photographs, especially when they capture violence and vulnerability? What are the implications of using photography to craft identities for ourselves and others? By tackling these questions and many more, you will gain a new perspective on your role as a maker, subject, and consumer of photographs.

Prerequisite: AH 111 , AH 112 , FA 102 , FA 103 , or permission from instructor.