Readings

Textbooks

[Myth] = Amazon logo Barthes, Roland. Mythologies. 2nd ed. Translated by Richard Howard and Annette Lavers. Hill and Wang, 2012. ISBN: 9780374532345.

[NHP] = Amazon logo Weaver, Mike. A New History of Photography. Konemann, 1999. ISBN: 9783829013284.

SES # TOPICS READINGS And ASSIGNMENTS
Week 1: Introduction
1 Overview, Formal Analysis & How to Give Presentations No Readings
Week 2: Technologies
2 Technologies

Watch

Watch at least one of the Videos about Photographic Processes made by the George Eastman House.

Read

Amazon logo Warren, Bruce. "Technical History of Photography." In Photography: The Concise Guide. 2nd ed. Wadsworth Publishing, 2011. ISBN: 9780495897804. [Preview with Google Books]

Amazon logo Daguerre, Louis Jacques Mandé. "Daguerreotype." In Classic Essays on Photography. Edited by Alan Trachtenberg. Leete's Island Books, 1980. ISBN: 9780918172082.

Manovich, Lev Official Website. Photography After Photography. Exhibition Catalog, 1995.

Read at Least 3 Photography Exhibition Reviews:

Exhibition Reviews by Sarah Moroz: "Sarah Moroz: A Media Portfolio." Sarah Moroz's tumblr page.

Reviews by Sean O'Hagan: Profile: Sean O'Hagan. The Guardian.

3 Visit "Daguerre's American Legacy" at the MIT Museum
Week 3: Likeness and Identity (Portraiture)
4 Early Portraiture & the Carte de Visite

Read

Amazon logo Barthes, Roland. Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography. Hill and Wang, 2010, pp. 63–73. ISBN: 9780374532338.

[Myth] "The Harcourt Actor."

Amazon logo Grenier, Roger. A Box of Photographs. University Of Chicago Press, 2013, pp. 6–11 and 107. ISBN: 9780226308319. [Preview with Google Books]

5 Photography, Identity, & Resemblance
Week 4: Making Art I (Realism and Abstraction)
6 Photography & Painting

Read

Amazon logo Benjamin, Walter. The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2010. ISBN: 9781453722480.

[NHP] "Artistic Aspirations: The Lure of the Fine Art."

Krauss, Rosalind. "The Photographic Conditions of Surrealism." October 19 (1981): 3–34.

7 Surrealism & Abstraction
Week 5: Urban Exploration (Street Photography)
8 Documenting Urbanism

Watch

Rob Hooley. "André Kertesz BBC Master Photographers." April 14, 2013. YouTube.

Read

Amazon logo Morand, Paul. "Foreword." In Paris by Night. Pantheon, 1988. ISBN: 9780394755526.

Amazon logo Stallabras, Julien. Paris Pictured: Street Photography 1900–1968. Royal Academy of Arts, 2009. ISBN: 9781903973028.

Amazon logo Meyerowitz, and Westerbeck. "An American in Paris." In Bystander: A History of Street Photography. Bulfinch, 2001. ISBN: 9780821227268.

9 People in the Streets
Week 6: Making Art II (Institutions)
10 Visit to the Study Room of the Museum of Fine Arts

Read

Amazon logo Baudelaire, Charles. The Salon of 1859. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2014. ISBN: 9781503306233.

[NHP] "Photographic Institutions and Practices."

Amazon logo Solomon-Godeau, Abigail. "Calotypomania: The Gourmet Guide to Nineteenth-century Photography." In Photography at the Dock: Essays on Photographic History, Institutions, and Practices. University of Minnesota Press, 1994. ISBN: 9780816619146.

11 Photography and the Art Market / Museum
Week 7: Photography and the Novel
12

Photography and Literature

Special Guest: Carrie O'Connor

Read

Amazon logo Tournier, Michel. The Golden Droplet (La Goutte D'Or). Translated by Barbara Wright. Doubleday, 1987, pp. 1–50, 69–76, 88, and 94–95. ISBN: 9782070379088.

Amazon logo Zola. La Bête Humaine. Create Space Independent Publishing Platform, 2013. ISBN: 9781466260375.

Week 8: Research and Investigation
13 Science & Society

Watch

"Harold "Doc" Edgerton - How Fast is Fast?" From the Vault Video Collection. MIT+150. Produced by MIT Video Productions for the Edgerton Foundation, 1994.

Read

[NHP] "The Body of Evidence" and "The All Powerful Eye."

14 Virtual Visit of "Doc" Edgerton Archive
Week 9: Tourism & Travel
15 Picture-taking & Picture Postcards

Read

Amazon logo Steinorth, Karl. "Photography for Everyone." In You Press the Button We Do the Rest: The Birth of Snapshot Photography. Dirk Nishen Publishing, 1988. ISBN: 9781853780103.

Amazon logo Alloula, Malek. The Colonial Harem. University of Minnesota Press, 1986, pp. 1–26. ISBN: 9780816613847.

Week 10: Spreading the News I (Photojournalism)
16 The Decisive Moment

Watch

Tom Johnston. "Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Decisive Moment." Novermber 19, 2012. YouTube.

Read

Amazon logo Cartier-Bresson, Henri. The Decisive Moment. Steidl, 2015. ISBN: 9783869307886. [Buy from Steidl Books]

"Why France Fell." Photographs by Lisette Model. PM's Weekly. 19 January, 1941, pp. 38–39.

17

Photography & the Press

Special Guest: Jason Hill

Week 11: Humanistic Photography
18 Aesthetics & Suffering

Read

[NHP] "Looking At Others: Humanism and Neo-realism."

[Myth] "Shock Photos" and "The Family of Man."

Week 12: Spreading the News II (War Photography)
19 The Ethics of War Photography

Read

Sontag, Susan. "Looking at War." The New Yorker, December 9, 2002.

Lavoie, Vincent. "War and the iPhone: New Fronts for Photojournalism." Translated by John Tittensor. Etudes Photographiques.

Snow, Lalage. "Kabul's Hidden Gardens Offer Afghans Haven From War," Financial Times, September 13, 2013.

"We Are Not The Dead: Soldiers' Faces Before, During and After Serving in Afghanistan," The Telegraph.

20

Photographing War

Special Guest: Lalage Snow

Week 13: Sell, Sell, Sell (Photography in Fashion and Advertising)
21
 
Do Pictures Sell?

Watch

Ma Pelette. "Sarah Moon is a Master of Photography." June 14, 2009. YouTube.

Read

[NHP] "The Dream of Beauty: Fashion and Fantasy."

[Myth] "Electoral Photography."

Week 14: Photography and Law
22 Photographs as Witnesses

Read

Amazon logo Gunning, Tom. "Embarrassing Evidence: The Detective Camera and the Documentary Impulse." In Collecting Visible Evidence. University of Minnesota Press, 1999. ISBN: 9780816631360. [Preview with Google Books]

Laurent, Oliver. "Protecting Privacy, Limiting Street Photography," The New York Times, April 23, 2013.

Estrin, James. "Criminalizing Photography," The New York Times, August 14, 2012.

23 Photography as Crime
Week 15: Cataloguing the World (Photo Archives to Instagram)
24 Albert Kahn & The Archives de la Planète

Read

Murray, Susan. "Digital Images, Photo-sharing, and Our Shifting Notions of Everyday Aesthetics." Journal of Visual Culture 7, no. 2 (2008): 147–63.

25 The Documentary Impulse Today