The Meaning of Photography Robin Kelsey, Blake Stimson, Geoffrey Batchen, Francois Brunet, etc., Sharon Harper, Lilla LoCurto, William Outcault, Fiona Tan

How can we write the histories of photography? How should art history and visual studies integrate the special technical and aesthetic challenges posed by the medium and respond to the intense interest it has provoked in the art world in recent years? In this timely volume, more than twenty leading scholars discuss the discipline, practice, historiography, and study of photography, from William Henry Fox Talbot to Louise Lawler, and reflect on the status of photography today. In addition, the book features works by important contemporary artists that probe and illustrate these same issues, together offering new perspectives on the field and what photography means to us in the early twenty-first century.

Robin Kelsey is John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University. Blake Stimson is Associate Professor of Art History at the University of California, Davis.