Photography in China (AHIS30025)

This subject focuses on the history of photography in greater China, from its introduction in the nineteenth century through to its use in the present. Photography will be explored as a cultural phenomenon and an art form, as well as a tool of propaganda and surveillance. Adopting a thematic approach, the subject will consider how photography was creatively adapted to suit local needs and how it has intersected with world currents.

Students will examine photography’s role in colonial and ethnographic projects, modernisation, identity formation, revolution, cultural politics, and the everyday. Using theories and concepts of looking, consideration will be given to the contexts in which photographs taken in greater China, by Chinese and non-Chinese photographers, have been understood within and outside China. The subject will include first-hand study of objects in local collections.