History and Theory of Photography 2

Code	Completion	Credits	Range	Language Instruction	Semester
307EHT2	exam	4	4 lecture hours (45 min) of instruction per week, 64 to 84 hours of self-study	English

Subject guarantor

Tomáš DVOŘÁK

Name of lecturer(s)

Tomáš DVOŘÁK, Josef LEDVINA, Noemi PURKRÁBKOVÁ, Michal ŠIMŮNEK

Department

The subject provides Department of Photography

History and Theory of Photography, Summer 2025/26

Besides the weekly readings, you must study during the Summer semester:

ROLAND BARTHES. CAMERA LUCIDA. New York: Hill and Wang 1981.

VILÉM FLUSSER. TOWARDS A PHILOSOPHY OF PHOTOGRAPHY.London: Reaktion Books 2000.

We recommend getting at least one survey of twentieth-century art, ideally Hal Foster et al. Art Since 1900: Modernism, Antimodernism, Postmodernism. New York: Thames & Hudson 2004.

09/02

Analog, digital and synthetic photography: introduction to mid-term paper, AI tools in artistic research

16/02

Portrait photography. Miniatures, silhouettes, physiognomy. Carte de visite and forensic archives. Nadar, Disdéri, Rejlander.

GISÈLE FREUND. PHOTOGRAPHY & SOCIETY. Boston: David R. Godine 1980, 9-51.

August Sander. Photography as a Universal Language. The Massachusetts Review 19, 1978(4), 674-679.

Allan Sekula. The Body and the Archive. October 39, 1986, 3-64.

John Stauffer – Zoe Trodd – Celeste-Marie Bernier. Picturing Frederick Douglass: An Illustrated Biography of the Nineteenth Century’s Most Photographed American, New York: W. W. Norton & Co. 2015.

Graham Clarke (ed.). The Portrait in Photography. London: Reaktion Books 1992.

23/02

Scientific Photography. Vision and visualisation. Objectivity.

ÉTIENNE-JULES MAREY. THE HISTORY OF CHRONOPHOTOGRAPHY. Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution 1901, 317-340.

Kelley Wilder. Photography and Science. London: Reaktion Books 2009.

Lorraine Daston – Peter Galison. Objectivity. New York: Zone Books 2007.

Thomas Keenan – Eyal Weizman. Mengeleho lebka: Zrod forenzní estetiky. Praha: NAMU 2022.

Corey Keller (ed.). Brought to Light: Photography and the Invisible, 1840-1900. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Alberto Toscano - Jeff Kinkle. Cartographies of the Absolute. Winchester: Zero Books 2015.

02/03

Social photography. Riis, Evans, Lange, Parks. Reportage and photoessay. Critical realism. Sekula, Rosler.

SIEGFRIED KRACAUER. PHOTOGRAPHY. Critical Inquiry 19/03, 1993, 421-436..

Martha Rosler. In, around, and afterthoughts (on documentary photography). 1981.

Sergei Treťiakov. From the Photo-Series to Extended Photo-Observation. October 2006(118), 71-77.

Sally Stein. Migrant Mother, Migrant Gender. London:MACK 2021.

Ariella Azoulay. The Civil Contract of Photography. New York: Zone Books 2008.

09/03

Avantgarde photography. New objectivity and new vision, constructivism, surrealism. Graphic design and photography.

LÁSZLÓ MOHOLY-NAGY. PAINTING, PHOTOGRAPHY, FILM. London: Lund Humphries 1969, 7-40.

16/03

23/03

Instant photography. Amateur, vernacular, commercial. Kodak. Decisive moment and chance.

HENRI CARTIER-BRESSON. THE DECISIVE MOMENT. The Mind’s Eye. New York: Aperture 1999, 20-43.

Paul Frosh. The Image Factory: Consumer Culture, Photography and the Visual Content Industry. Oxford: Berg 2003.

Peter Buse. The Camera Does the Rest: How Polaroid Changed Photography. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press 2016.

Robin Kelsey. Photography and the Art of Chance. Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press 2015.

30/03

Conceptual photography. Duchamp and art using photography. Pictures generation. Typology and classification.

JEFF WALL. “MARKS OF INDIFFERENCE”: ASPECTS OF PHOTOGRAPHY IN, OR AS, CONCEPTUAL ART, 1995.

Douglas Eklund. The Pictures Generation, 1974-1984. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art 2009.

Douglas Folge. The Last Picture Show: Artists Using Photography, 1960-1982. Minneapolis: Walker Art Centre 2003.

D. Costello - M. Iversen (eds.). Photography After Conceptual Art. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell 2010.

06/04

13/04

Digital photography and new media. Post-photography, computer graphics, photoshop, social platforms.

MARTHA ROSLER. IMAGE SIMULATIONS, COMPUTER MANIPULATIONS: SOME CONSIDERATIONS. Decoys and Disruptions: Selected Writings, 1975–2001. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press 2004, 259-317.

Nathan Jurgenson. The Social Photo. London: Verso 2019.

Lev Manovich. The Language of New Media. The MIT Press 2001.

Jay David Bolter - Richard Grusin. Remediation: Understanding New Media. The MIT Press 2000.

Ernst Van Alphen. Staging the Archive: Art and Photography in the Age of New Media. London: Reaktion Books 2014.

20/04

Synthetic photography and AI. Generative, computational, post-optical.

Antonio Somaini. Algorithmic Images: Artificial Intelligence and Visual Culture. Grey Room 2023(93), 74–115.

Joanna Zylinska. Nonhuman Photography. The MIT Press 2017.

Rosemary Lee. Algorithm, Image, Art. New York: Atropos 2024.

Lila Lee-Morrison. Portraits of Automated Facial Recognition: On Machinic Ways of Seeing the Face. Bielefeld: Transcript 2019.

27/04

Final paper consultations, preliminary exam date.

Learning outcomes

Learning outcomes: the student will gain knowledge of the history of photography, art and visual culture of the 20th century, learn to work with specialist literature, conduct research, analyse photographic images and present their knowledge in the form of a critical essay and interpretation.

Prerequisites and other requirements

Literature

required literature: https://amu365-my.sharepoint.com/:f:/g/personal/tomdvorak_famu_cz/EtV-qtF9n-tHhhwilzXejBMBp65HlEOO5kDvrT1ZpPynWQ?e=J5KA5x

Evaluation methods and criteria

Mid-term paper: use AI tools to create a short (visual) essay (2-3 pages) about the gaps in the historiography of photography and its biases as a critical, speculative history of photography. Send by 23 March 2026.

Final paper: critical study on an agreed upon topic, 5-10 pages by 11 May 2026.

The exam has two parts, which will focus on a discussion of

both seminar papers: 50%
one selected topic: 50%

Note

Schedule for winter semester 2025/2026:

The schedule has not yet been prepared

	06:00–08:0008:00–10:0010:00–12:0012:00–14:0014:00–16:0016:00–18:0018:00–20:0020:00–22:0022:00–24:00
Mon	room LAZ-111 Room. No. 111 (Lažanský palác) DVOŘÁK T. 11:30–13:05 (lecture parallel1)
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri

Date	Day	Time	Tutor	Location	Notes	No. of paralel
	Mon	11:30–13:05	Tomáš DVOŘÁK	Room. No. 111 Lažanský palác		lecture parallel1

The subject is a part of the following study plans

Photography EN - Bachelor - 2022 (Required subjects)