Images and the Historian

Catalog description

Historians are used to working with textual sources. How can images complement and deepen the process of historical inquiry? And which challenges are bound up with the use of visual material? This graduate colloquium caters to history students from all periods and fields. We will start with key theoretical and methodological texts that originate in neighboring disciplines such as art history, visual studies, and anthropology. In a second step, we will read and discuss select studies that utilize visual material to make a distinctively historical argument. Most of these studies focus on the medieval and early modern period, but you are welcome to expand your reading and to choose any other historical period for your final paper. Whatever topic and period you elect, we will all depart from the same basic premise: images are not mere ‘illustrations’ of historical events, but rather cultural artifacts that encapsulate historical processes with all the attendant ambiguities and contradictions.