Visual Studies graduate courses

VS 501 - Introduction to Visual Studies

This is a graduate introductory survey of the theory and practice of Visual Studies. The transition from an industrialized modern to an electronic postmodern society is a frame of reference to examine and discuss a wide range of approaches to the creation and interpretation of visual experience.  Also considered are the many ways that paintings, photographs, films, fashions, and everyday objects both shape and are shaped by the concepts, values, and meanings that constitute cultural life in contemporary urban society. Some of the concepts covered in this course include formalism, the avant-garde, semiotics, representation, discourse, the gaze, the panopticon, surveillance, power, and sexual politics.