 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
 |
|
Requirements For undergraduates there will be mid-term and final exams. Graduate students will complete a take-home final exam on a historical/critical topic. There are no requirements for graduate students taking the course for "registration" credit. Attendance of discussion sections by undergraduates is mandatory. This graduate-level course conducts an archaeology of modern visual culture and attempts to map out some elements of the historical construction of 20th century spectacular society. One of the premises of the course is that many of these elements, or points of emergence, lie in the late 18th and 19th centuries. Thus we will examine transformations in philosophical and scientific ideas about vision and assess the ways in which those ideas were inseparable from the concrete development of visual practices and technologies in the nineteenth century. The changing status of the spectator will be discussed in terms of larger shifts in the nature of subjectivity, and in the unstable texture of both individual and collective experience. The hypothesis that "visual culture" in the West is inseparable from long-standing metaphysical and epistemological assumptions originating in antiquity, will be explored. The modernization of perception will be assessed through analyses of specific art works, optical technologies, cultural forms and media. A key aim of the course is to develop an awareness of the embeddedness of local visual artifacts and "reality effects" within a wider frame of intellectual and social transformation. At the same time, the theoretical problems involved in an attempt to historicize perception and visuality will be addressed critically. When possible the course will draw on exhibition and museum resources in New York (e.g. the Vanderlyn Panorama display at the Metropolitan Museum, pre-cinematic devices at the Museum of the Moving Image, various displays of 19th century photography, etc.) Course Syllabus The syllabus has been formatted as portable document files (pdfs) for ease when printing. This format necessitates the Adobe Acrobat Reader. (If you encounter any problems viewing the file you will need to download a browser plug-in from the Adobe Acrobat Reader Web site.) Click to download the course syllabus. Images are available on the menu under Visual Resources. Course Readings Click to download the a pdf of required course readings. back to top 
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
 |
|
 |