Readings in Material & Visual Culture Studies ((3 Credits))

Catalog description

What does a wooden bowl say about a particular society? How can a photograph be read? In this course, students will examine the manner in which objects and images are used as cultural creations and primary source materials. The theoretical and methodological underpinnings of Material and Visual Culture Studies will be considered, as will the traditions of Culture Studies more generally. Among the texts to be considered are those by John Berger, Arjun Appadurai, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Eugene Rochberg-Halton, Marianne Hirsch, Kristin Hass, Mike Wallace, and Jules Prown. Students will be expected to submit a paper reviewing the research and scholarship of the field midway through the term and a final paper analyzing a particular object or image.