History of Photography, 1839 to the Present

Major artists and movements in the global history of the photographic medium, including visual and critical traditions inherited and manipulated by photographers, the ways photography participated in nineteenth- and twentieth-century art movements as well as documentation and social change, and critical photographic discourse throughout this period. Topics include the invention of photography and its dissemination, 'Art' photography and documentary photography in the nineteenth century, pictorialism, photography and modernist art movements in and beyond Europe and the United States (including dada, surrealism, Bauhaus, Russian avant-garde), twentieth-century documentary, as well as digital photography and the AI-generated synthetic image.