ARTS 209 Photography Against the Grain

This course is a conceptual art class that takes photography as its subject. Using a wide range of photographs and photographic practices, the class will consider how photographs are instrumental in forming our notions of self, family, work, and nation. We will also grapple with the difference between analogue and digital photography and photography's relation to the physical world. The class will read key photography essays that will challenge students to think critically about the role of photography in contemporary culture and modernity, historiography, and science. We will use a broad range of art techniques like drawing, painting, printmaking, sculpture, digital alteration, and even craft techniques to remake and rework photographs to reveal hidden truths or create new meanings. Unlike some classes where you learn art techniques first, here you will be expected to adopt techniques and generate art from a set of ideas that arise from our readings, discussions, experiments, and field trips.