Visual Culture Theory and History

Catalog description

Visual Culture Theory and History examines foundational theoretical texts that have come to define Visual Studies as a historically delineated academic discipline. "Visual Culture Theory and History" provides a broad exploration of theories describing the aesthetic, psychological, and social significance of visual images, as well as the media processes inherent in creating visual experiences. The course will define Visual Studies as an academic field within the humanities. Topics will generally include the image in classical rhetoric, media theories about images, visuality and post-colonial theory, semiotic analysis of images, the cinematic image, gender and visuality, consumer culture's use of images, spectatorship and social identity, television history, images and the construction of space, the relationship between word and image in books, experimental manipulation of visual images in art, images in performance both theatrical and social, the history of photography, and technologies of image production. The class discussions will elucidate the interdisciplinary effects of image production, reception, and circulation in modern media environments. The course will provide students with a broad range of theoretical methods for analyzing visual images so that they may understand their importance and incorporate a theoretically sophisticated analysis of this visual component in their graduate research. The course is one of two required courses for the Visual Studies dual degree.