October culture : photographic theory and the beginnings of postmodernism

This thesis explores the birth of the journal October, in its context of late 1970s academia and the decline of modernist criticism in the United States. It analyses three articles first published in October: Rosalind Krauss's two part "Notes on the index: seventies in art America" (spring/fall 1976), Thierry de Duve's "Time exposure and snapshot: the photograph as paradox" (summer 1978), and Douglas Crimp's "The photographic activity of postmodernism" (winter 1980). The thesis attempts to understand the key role played by October in changing our understanding of photography as an artistic practice and cultural object by discussing the position of October in the creation of photographic theory and the function of photographic theory in the critique of modernism that has come to be known as postmodernism.