Because ours is a predominantly visual culture in which photographs have become a common medium of representation and the means by which we receive most of our information about the world, issues regarding reality and truth in photography in the digital age are important subjects of continuing investigation. Although photography still constitutes one of the central media for the representation of experience, the legitimacy of photography has been challenged in a number of ways over the last fifteen or so years. Photography today is, in fact, faced with two apparent crises: one technological (the introduction of computerized images) and one epistemological (having to do with broader changes in ethics, knowledge and culture). This course will explore issues related to those crises such as the photograph as historical record, the photograph as representation, the realness of the digital photograph, traditional and digital manipulation of images, the relationship between postmodernism and post-photography, contemporary copyright debates, and the contemporary status of news and documentary photography. Students will be expected to complete a variety of theoretical, historical, and popular readings, participate in seminar discussions, and write a research paper.