Instructor: Lester Faigley
TTH 11-12:15 * MEZ 1.104 * #35685

Since the early decades of the nineteenth century, when advances in printing, paper manufacture, and engraving made cheap, mass-produced images broadly available, Western culture has been characterized as a visual culture. During the twentieth century visual technologies proliferated, especially in new electronic forms. In the last decade digital technologies have made it possible for individuals to publish multimedia texts that formerly required entire production departments and studios.

In spite of the proliferation of images in our culture and the ease of producing and publishing them, they remain a neglected area of study within the humanities. We will examine the modern history of visual culture and explore a range of scholarship that extends from the rise of illustrated newspapers and new image technologies in the nineteenth century to digital imaging and the multimedia Web.

Requirements:

• Three short introductions to visual texts or visual theory (9 points each) and a visual text example (3 points)
  
• A major project of article length in a print format or the equivalent in a multimedia format (70 points)

• Nicholas Mirzoeff. An Introduction to Visual Culture. London: Routledge, 1999. ISBN 0-415-15876-1
  
• Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright. Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture. New York: Oxford UP, 2001. ISBN 0-19-874271-1
  
• Handout readings, online essays and multimedia materials