Barthes classic book about  photography Camera Lucida is the primary text for this course. His idea that the way we look at photographs in two ways. The studium is a desire to study and understand a photograph. The punctum, literally the point or wound, is sometimes simplified as a telling detail that may or may not have been intentional. These ideas are balanced by a meditation on loss and memory. 

A good short description is here.

Susan Sontag's On Photography is considered by many to be one of the most important books about image-making produced in the 20th century. It is a work of philosophical criticism that can be challenging in the contradictions it proposes.  

Quotes from On Photography may be found here. I'm not sure they are the "most important" as the curator claims but they are a good sample. 

The full text of On Photography may be downloaded here for the sole purpose of enhancing our Digital Media Analysis course. An important excerpt is here. 

In the excerpt we worked with in class on Monday October 14 Sontag mentions an important mid twentieth century photographer named Diane Arbus.

The Richard Avedon article is here and the article about the Thich Quang Duc suicide is here.