Photography. Social Uses and Abuses 3500-FAKL-FOTO

The purpose of this seminar is to analyse a social history of photography with regard to some key questions concerning the production of the modern social order.The history of transformations of photography can be analysed through the critical moments in its struggle for relative independence. In its beginnings, photography was a means of surveillance. Portraits and family albums, in turn, became an expression and, at the same time, a means of transformation of intimacy patterns and everyday life. Finally, artistic photography was claimed to make art democratic. In this seminar, we will study various uses of photography in order to trace the changes in the cultural patterns and mores of middle classes. We will analyse main topos reletad to the photography: sociogenesis of photography, modern forms of surveillance, representations and classifications, documentary and art, currrents in photography, iconic turn, counter-representation and counter public spheres, photography in global capitalism.