ART 370 History and Theory of Photography

This course provides an overview of the history of photography as well as an introduction to critical writings on photography from the nineteenth century to our current digital age. We will consider the history of technical developments in photography as well as its relationship to fine art and mass culture. In particular, we will explore photography’s many functions throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: as a tool for scientific research, a means of establishing identities, a stage for projecting the impossible, a purely formal medium, and an index of social realities. We will also examine the ethics of photography, on the part of the photographer as well as the viewer, and question how the history of photography and photography theory might impact the way in which we as Christians take, view, and distribute our own photographs today. Prerequisite(s): ART 270 of permission of instructor. Fall. 3 hour(s).