This course focuses on photography's entanglement in American systems of social power, especially race, gender, and sexuality. It investigates how the medium has been used as a tool of empowerment as well as subjugation in the contexts of fine art, activism, and visual culture more broadly. The course gives particular focus to the role of photography in struggles for liberation by marginalized people, from photography's invention in the mid-nineteenth century to the present. In addition to this historical and political context, students learn visual analysis skills, are introduced to the technical aspects of various photographic processes, and gain fluency in photography-specific vocabulary.