ARTH/CGS 293: History of Photography
Instructor: Jeanne Nugent
Course Description
This course will trace differing histories of world photography from 1839
to the present with an emphasis on American and European developments.
We
will follow the major theoretical issues raised by the medium in terms
of its truth value as a document, its reproducibility and its popularity
among
different social classes. The numerous functions of the photograph
from art and advertising to propaganda and evidence will be discussed in
light of
technological developments from glass plates and paper prints to Polaroid
film and digital media. As such, even the most conventional categories
of
portraiture or landscape will be seen to interrogate objectivity, originality,
power and truth in revealing ways.
A sample of the photographers whose work we will consider include: Berenice
Abbott, Diane Arbus, Eugene Atget, Richard Avedon, the Bragaglia brothers,
Alexander Gardner, John Heartfield, Lewis Hine, Sally Mann, Laszlo
Moholy-Nagy, Etienne-Jules Marey, Robert Mapplethorpe, Eadweard Muybridge,
Nadar, Man Ray, August Sander, Andre Serrano, Cindy Sherman, Alfred
Stieglitz, Carleton Watkins, and the ubiquitous Anonymous.
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