ARTH 1163

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  • Schedule of Classes - October 31, 2025 7:07PM EDT

ARTH 1163
FWS: Origins of Photography

Course information provided by the 2025-2026 Catalog.

This course will allow first-years to answer the question: from where, and how, did the idea evolve that one might catch a picture in a net, as one might catch not only a butterfly but the piece of sky in which it flew? By discovering how photography evolved, students will learn how many forces—artistic, scientific, technological, political, phenomenological, and structural—are responsible for the appearance of a single invention and idea. Episodes from the history of optics, perspective drawing, mapmaking, landscape, chemistry, view painting, will be glimpsed (1300-1800) as well as the race to capture the image in the camera obscura (1800-1839) and an introduction to early photographic processes (1839-1870).


Last 4 Terms Offered 2018SP

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Syllabi: none

  •   FWS Session. 

  • 3 Credits Graded

  •  9460 ARTH 1163   SEM 101

  •  
    • MWF
    • Jan 20 - May 5, 2026

    • Moisey, A

  • Instruction Mode: In Person

    For more information about First-Year Writing Seminars, see the Knight Institute website at http://knight.as.cornell.edu/.