VISST 2000 - Introduction to Visual Studies

(crosslisted) AMST 2000, ARTH 2000, COML 2000
(ALC-AS, ETM-AS, LA-AS)

Spring. 4 credits. Student option grading.

Requirement for Visual Studies minor.

J. Rickard.

This course provides an introduction to modes of vision and the historical impact of visual images, visual structures, and visual space on culture, communication, and politics. It examines all aspects of culture that communicate through visual means, including 20th-century visual technologies—photography, cinema, video, etc., and their historical corollaries. The production and consumption of images, objects, and events is studied in diverse cultures. Students develop the critical skills necessary to appreciate how the approaches that define visual studies complicate traditional models of defining and analyzing art objects.