This course introduces students to the history of photography from its beginnings in the 1830s to the recent practices of artists working with photographic technologies in the context of postmodernity. The primary task of the course will be to develop visual literacy and familiarity with the complex and contradictory genres and social functions of photographic image production. At the same time, this course will introduce the difficulty of writing the history of photography as a separate discipline that operates both inside and outside histories of modern art.