History of Photography

This course looks at the evolution of vision and practice through a selected survey of the history, technology, and aesthetics of photography from the earliest experiments in the medium to the present day. We will focus primarily on the photographic practice in Europe and the U.S. In this course, we will investigate the social cultural, and political implications of the revolution of photography, paying critical attention to its manipulations within the contexts of entertainment, advertising, the state, science, journalism, modern and postmodern art. We will also carefully explore our relationships with the proliferation of mass media imagery today.