Courses
Course materials
Chinese site only
Course materials are available only to Chinese-language users. This page is for browsing course descriptions.
Course catalog
Explore the courses
Photography theory series
Season 9: Photography and Our Condition
Starting from the world, the self, and death, we rethink the place of photographs in everyday life.
Season 8: Integrated Topics in Photography Theory
From Japanese and Latin American photography to ruins, photobooks, affect, and Evans's Polaroid practice—expanding the boundaries of looking.
Season 7: How Contemporary Photography Engages Reality
Through documentary, landscape, archival, and forensic photographic practices, understanding how images take part in reality.
Season 6: Close Readings of Classics in Photography Theory
Returning to the original texts of Sekula, Azoulay, Elkins, and others to read closely the core questions of photography theory.
Season 5: A Research Map of the Frontiers of Photography Theory
Mapping half a century of research paths to understand how different theories pose questions and explain photography.
Season 4: Art Photography and Everyday Photography
Eight concrete questions on art photography, everyday looking, the prices of photographs, and memory.
Season 3: Methodologies of Contemporary Art Photography
From Jeff Wall and the Bechers to Martha Rosler, understanding the creative methods behind the works.
Season 2: The Social Life of Photographs
Placing photographs back into relations between people, to understand the civil contract, family albums, museums, and technical images.
Season 1: Introduction to Photography Theory
Entering photography theory through the classic works of Barthes and Sontag, building a foundation for looking at and discussing photographs.
Special courses
Special Course: Art and Images After Artificial Intelligence
From the basic principles of artificial intelligence to creativity, image ethics, and world models—forming your own judgments.
Special Course: A Theory Toolbox for Photographers
Using key terms as threads, an accessible explanation of reading photographs, photographic expression, organizing images, and photography's social relations.
Special Course: Philosophy of Photography
Through Kant, Heidegger, Benjamin, and Rancière, inquiring into the nature of photography and its aesthetics and politics.