3.0

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How did photography change science and medicine, and vice versa? This course explores how and why photography and related imaging techniques became central to a broad variety of fields of science and medicine, ranging from anthropology and astronomy to embryology, nuclear physics, and radiology. It also considers how these techniques were created in the first place and to what extent they affected the standing of photography as an “art-science.” Central themes will include (among others) the status and objectivity of photographic evidence; the historical relationships between technical, scientific, and artistic change; the role of photography in disseminating scientific and medical knowledge and (mis)information; the racial and gender biases of scientific and medical photography; and photography’s use as a tool of scientific exploration, measurement, and surveillance. Students will be developing their own research projects in consultation with the instructor.