Junior Colloquium: Visual Culture Studies and Violence
AMST 208
Spring 2014
| Section:
01
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| Certificates: Social, Cultural, and Critical Theory |
In this course, students will gain important foundational knowledge of the field of visual cultural studies. We will cover theories of the gaze, photographic sight, film and media, spectatorship and witnessing, museums and exhibitions, and trauma and memory, among others. Particular attention will be paid to issues of power, complicity, and resistance, as we consider what it means to be "visual subjects" in historical and contemporary contexts. We will address how different media--from photography, to television, to film, to the Internet--transform our understanding of images and what it means to both "look" and "be seen."
As a primary case study, this course will interrogate the politics of violence, focusing on the relationship between the production of visual culture(s) and acts of individual, collective, and state aggression. We will ask: how have images served to propagate climates of violence against marginalized persons? What are the ethics of looking at pain, torture, and exploitation? Do such images help us to work towards social change, or to create attitudes of indifference? How do images of war, prisons, pornography, death, crimes, famine, and disease shape our understandings of citizenship, nationality, and identity? Finally, how does the representation of difference--race, gender, sexuality, class, and disability--inform and/or transform conceptions of violence and its place in the visual field? |
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| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
SBS AMST |
| Course Format: Seminar | Grading Mode: Graded |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
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Fulfills a Requirement for: (AMST)(CSCT) |
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Past Enrollment Probability: Not Available |
| SECTION 01 |
Major Readings: Wesleyan RJ Julia Bookstore
Drucilla Cornell, ed., FEMINISM AND PORNOGRAPHY
Sasha Torres, BLACK, WHITE, AND IN COLOR: TELEVISION AND BLACK CIVIL RIGHTS
Barbie Zelizer, REMEMBERING TO FORGET: HOLOCAUST MEMORY THROUGH THE CAMERA'S EYE
Richard Dyer, WHITE
- Excerpts from (examples):
Susan Sontag, ON PHOTOGRAPHY AND REGARDING THE PAIN OF OTHERS
W. J. T. Mitchell, CLONING TERROR: THE WAR OF IMAGES: 9/11 TO THE PRESENT
bell hooks, BLACK LOOKS: RACE AND REPRESENTATION
Timothy Luke, MUSEUM POLITICS: POWER PLAYS AT THE EXHIBITION
Elaine Scarry, THE BODY IN PAIN: THE MAKING AND UNMAKING OF THE WORLD
Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright, eds., PRACTICES OF LOOKING: AN INTRODUCTION TO VISUAL CULTURE
Susie Linfield, THE CRUEL RADIANCE: PHOTOGRAPHY AND POLITICAL VIOLENCE
Ulrich Baer, SPECTRAL EVIDENCE: THE PHOTOGRAPHY OF TRAUMA
Kobena Mercer, WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE: NEW POSITIONS IN BLACK CULTURAL STUDIES
Thomas Grimes, James Anderson, and Lori Bergen, MEDIA VIOLENCE AND AGGRESSION: SCIENCE AND IDEOLOGY
John Tagg, THE BURDEN OF REPRESENTATION: ESSAYS ON PHOTOGRAPHIES AND HISTORIES
Stephen F. Eisenman, THE ABU GHRAIB EFFECT
Elena Tajima Creef, IMAGING JAPANESE AMERICA: THE VISUAL CONSTRUCTION OF CITIZENSHIP, NATION, AND THE BODY
Ian Bogost, HOW TO DO THINGS WITH VIDEOGAMES
Chandan Reddy, FREEDOM WITH VIOLENCE: RACE, SEXUALITY, AND THE US STATE
George Roeder, THE CENSORED WAR: AMERICAN VISUAL EXPERIENCE DURING WORLD WAR II
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Examinations and Assignments:
- 1 image analysis, 2-3 pages (image to be chosen from a popular media source)
- 1 photograph analysis, 2-3 pages (photograph to be taken by students)
- 1 "scene" analysis from film or television, 2-3 pages
- Weekly discussion questions
- Final research paper, 15-20 pages |
| Instructor(s): Glick,Megan H. Times: ...W... 01:10PM-04:00PM; Location: CAMS 1; |
| Total Enrollment Limit: 15 | | SR major: 4 | JR major: 8 | | |
| Seats Available: 2 | GRAD: X | SR non-major: 1 | JR non-major: 2 | SO: 0 | FR: 0 |
| Drop/Add Enrollment Requests | | | | | |
| Total Submitted Requests: 3 | 1st Ranked: 0 | 2nd Ranked: 0 | 3rd Ranked: 0 | 4th Ranked: 0 | Unranked: 3 |
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