Visualizing History: Photography in conf

Photographs capture history as it happens, before events becomes history in the conventional sense, and these same photographs provide a visual archive of the past available to later historians.  This course explores the relationship between photography and history in selected conflicts and crises across the world in modern times, from the Crimean War to the war in Ukraine, from a Portuguese fascist internment camp for political prisoners to the U.S. Civil Rights Movement, the Arab Spring, and the current refugee crisis.   In each case we use a combination of  text and visual materials, with the focus on the latter, in order to trace the role of photography in history as well as the impact of changing photographic media, from large format cameras to cell phones.  Course requirements center on projects rather than papers and emphasize the analysis of visual materials as well as words.