VSA4290

Theory, culture and visuality

Constantine Verevis

10 points
* 2 hours per week plus 2 hour weekly screening
* Second semester
* Clayton
* Prohibitions: CLS4270

Objectives On successful completion of this subject students should have gained an understanding of the principal relationships between the field of cultural and critical theory and the visual field; applied cultural and critical theories to a range of visual works, developed an ability to make critical assessments about various forms of visual culture within a framework of historical change, and developed the critical and expressive resources to engage with written and visual texts in a clear and accurate manner.

Synopsis This subject addresses the relation between cultural and critical theory and the visual field. The range of visual products whose theorisation will be considered includes photography and film, painting and sculpture, architecture, performance, non-Western visual practices, and common objects. Discussion will take place on the historical positions and the theoretical construction of these products with reference to the discourses of modernism and modernity, post-modernism, the body, totalitarianism/post-totalitarianism, museology and institutions and `the everyday'.

Assessment Essay (3000 words): 35%
* Longer essay (4500 words): 55%
* Seminar participation: 10%

Recommended texts

Buck-Morss S Dialectic of seeing: Walter Benjamin and the arcades project MIT, 1989
Cooke L and Wollen P (eds) Visual display: Culture beyond appearances Bay Press, 1995
Crary J Techniques of the observer: on vision and modernity in the nineteenth century MIT, 1990
Friedberg A Window shopping: Cinema and the postmodern U California P, 1993
Jay M Downcast eyes: The denigration of vision in twentieth-century French thought U California P, 1993
Petro P (ed.) Fugitive images: From photography to video Indiana U P, 1995