The effecting eye: An integrated approach to teaching history of photography

This article describes and evaluates the curricular design and learning outcomes of History and Practice of Photography. This is an undergraduate course that integrates creative and theoretical components, which are traditionally taught separately, and often in different departments, in the study of the history of photography. Through interrogating contemporary visual culture with their eyes, words and cameras, students simultaneously study history and theory, examine divergent representational strategies through photographic assignments and deploy digital technologies as crucial tools for effecting personal, cultural and socio-political change. As such, the course offers a pedagogical shift away from the conventional delivery of art history surveys, in which lectures, examinations and research papers tend to predominate. This integrated approach sets out to create a multifaceted learning experience that fosters students' visual literacy, critical thinking, creative exploration and technological proficiency, all in the context of one class. The author proposes this curricular design as a template that could be extrapolated from, and applied to, other areas of visual studies in higher education.