I recently completed an online course titled Film, Images & Historical Interpretation in the 20th Century: The Camera Never Lies. This 6-week course offered by the University of London on Coursera, is instructed by Dr Emmett Sullivan, Senior Departmental Tutor in History at Royal Holloway, University of London.

The course:

• Focused on the use of images and film in historical interpretation in the 20^th century, with an emphasis on war photography.
• Offered an appreciation of the significance of photographs as historical evidence and explored the issues associated with their use as a source for historical research and interpretation, especially in the case of image manipulation.
• Examined how images and films can function as agents of ‘public history’ and shape our awareness of historical events.

Resources

1. Warner Marien, Mary. Photography: A Cultural History. Pearson, 2014.
2. Jacobson, Colin. Underexposed: Pictures of the 20th Century They Didn’t Want You to See. Vision on, 2002.
3. King, David. The Commissar Vanishes: The Falsification of Photographs and Art in Stalin’s Russia. Tate, 1997.

This is a great course for those interested in war photography. You can enroll for free and choose whether you would like to purchase a Certificate in the end.

 

*Featured photograph: Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima, by Joe Rosenthal.