Accessibility statement

The Uses of Photography - HOA00069M

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  • Department: History of Art
  • Credit value: 20 credits
  • Credit level: M
  • Academic year of delivery: 2024-25
    • See module specification for other years: 2022-23

Module summary

This module looks at the way in which photography has been used for practical purposes of identification, categorisation and for building and maintaining social relationships. It then looks at the way in which artists working with photography have often challenged these use values in various ways through their practice.

Module will run

Occurrence Teaching period
A Semester 1 2024-25

Module aims

This module aims to introduce students to a wide range of issues related to the medium of photography, including technological and theoretical ways of thinking about its history. It will be taught across the entire period of the medium's development. Particular questions about the relation of vernacular photography to fine art practice will be examined in depth - drawing out comparisons between past uses of the medium and the present. The way in which photography can inform questions of relationality - the relations between subjects - will be particularly emphasised, for example the way in which systems of archiving, and images of atrocity are used in order to achieve particular, often unstated, ideological ends. We may use local resources as part of the course, including personal images and local photographic collections. Students will develop an independent research topic throughout the module and will discuss this regularly with the group.

Module learning outcomes

  • To enable students to think critically about the status of photography as a fine art practice.
  • To question the claims made to documentary truth made by the photographic medium.
  • To develop a specialist vocabulary for discussing the technological aspects of photographic practice.
  • To gain a broad knowledge of both current photographic theory and the historical discourses in which it was understood in the past.
  • To gain insight into the physical properties of the photograph and to have direct experience of handling photographs as objects.
  • Choosing and developing an independent research topic
  • Building a bibliography
  • Presenting ideas clearly and accessibly to the group with appropriate visual support
  • Working with a range of texts from across disciplines and discussing them with the group.

Indicative assessment

Task % of module mark
Essay/coursework 100

Special assessment rules

None

Indicative reassessment

Task % of module mark
Essay/coursework 100

Module feedback

You will receive feedback on assessed work within the timeframes set out by the University - please check the Guide to Assessment, Standards, Marking and Feedback for more information.

The purpose of feedback is to help you to improve your future work. If you do not understand your feedback or want to talk about your ideas further, you are warmly encouraged to meet your Supervisor during their Office Hours.

Indicative reading

Preliminary bibliography:

  • Ariela Azoulay, Civil Imagination: A Political Ontology of Photography, (London: Verso, 2012)

  • Tina Campt, Imagining Everyday Life: Engagements with Vernacular Photography, (Frankfurt: Steidl, 2020)

  • Clément Chéroux, Since 1839…Eleven Essays on Photography, (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 2021)

  • Charlotte Cotton, The Photograph as Contemporary Art, (London: Thames and Hudson, 2020)

  • Jill Dawsey ed, The Uses of Photography: Art, Politics, and the Reinvention of a Medium (San Diego: University of California Press, 2016)

  • Margaret Iversen, Photography, Trace and Trauma, (Chicago: Chicago, 2017)

  • Susie Linfield, The Cruel Radiance: Photography and Political Violence (Chicago: 2012)

  • Christopher Pinney ed, Photography's Other Histories, (Durham, NC: Duke, 2003)

  • Jorge Ribalta ed, Not Yet: On the Reinvention of Documentary and the Critique of Modernism, (Madrid: Reina Sofia, 2015)

  • John Tagg, The Disciplinary Frame: Photographic Truths and the Capture of Meaning, (Minnesota, 2009)

  • Catherine Zuromskis, Snapshot Photography: The Lives of Images, (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 2013)


The information on this page is indicative of the module that is currently on offer. The University constantly explores ways to enhance and improve its degree programmes and therefore reserves the right to make variations to the content and method of delivery of modules, and to discontinue modules, if such action is reasonably considered to be necessary. In some instances it may be appropriate for the University to notify and consult with affected students about module changes in accordance with the University's policy on the Approval of Modifications to Existing Taught Programmes of Study.