MHIS 230: Histories + Theories of Photo

This course is an introduction to the history of photography: photography as a set of technological inventions, as a widely embraced social phenomenon and as a field of intellectual and philosophical discourse. Students will become aware of advances in photographic technologies since the middle of the nineteenth century as well as variations in aesthetics and the desire to document. Students will learn about the relationship of photography to industry, to emerging social sciences, police records and other disciplinary structures, and will consider how these social relations have evolved, expanded and been theorized through the uses and application of photography today.