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Michelle Sullivan, the first student to declare the Visual Studies Major
(Photo: Jack Edinger)
I became fascinated with visual studies fall 2007 while taking the course "Introduction to Visual Culture." I’m really inspired by the way this multi-disciplinary field engages images within society and culture.  Visual studies is the examination of all things visual, and what fascinates me the most is how applicable it is to understanding everything from fashion to biology to cultural anthropology to physics. Visual studies goes beyond what art history or any other major at Duke examines.  It allows one to recognize, understand and, finally, subvert the visual constructs we encounter everyday in society.  To me, it is imperative to gain the type of insight visual studies courses offer because it enables one to reexamine with a critical eye both academic subjects and images we face daily.  I believe that in the future what is taught through Visual Studies will become an integral part of education itself, and I am very excited and proud to be a part of such a significant initiative.

The Majors in Art, Art History & Visual Studies

A. Art History
The major in art history requires at least eleven courses, eight of which are at the 100 level or above. Both introductory art history courses, Art History 69 and 70 are required, as well as Visual Arts 54 (Introduction to Visual Practice). The other eight courses must include at least one course in each of the following five areas: ancient, medieval, Renaissance/Baroque, modern, and non-western, and may include two courses in Visual Studies. One of the eleven courses must be a 200-level seminar.

Students planning to attend graduate school should consider taking two 200-level seminars: Art History 296S (Methodology of Art History), and a second seminar in the same field as a 100-level course already taken by the student. (For example, Art History 141, (Fifteenth-Century Italian Art), is a logical preparation for Art History 247S (Topics in Italian Renaissance Art). Two years of a foreign language at the college level are strongly recommended. Students interested in preparing for graduate work in architecture should supplement their major requirements with the following courses: Visuart Arts 54 and 100; Mathematics 31, 32, and 103 and/or Physics 53L or 54L; and/or Civil and Environmental Engineering 161 or 162. No more than two approved courses taken away from Duke (at other institutions or abroad) may count toward the requirements of the major.

B. Visual Arts
The major in visual arts requires at least eleven courses including Visual Arts 54 (Introduction to Visual Practice); seven 100-level or above courses within the following visual arts fields: visual practice, architecture, photography and new media; and three courses either in Art History and/or Visual Studies. All senior visual arts majors are also required to take Visual Arts 200S (Senior Capstone in Visual Arts) during their final spring semester at Duke. Students are highly encouraged to enroll in an independent study during their junior or senior year as one of their upper-level requirements, and prior to their Senior Capstone experience.

The requirements and prerequisites for the major can be satisfied by courses taken at other institutions or abroad, but no more than two courses taken away from Duke may count towards the major. Further courses are available for credit at North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Studio Facilities: The Visual Arts program has new state-of-the-art studio facilities in the Art, Culture and Technology (ACT) Warehouse, a beautifully-renovated tobacco warehouse between S. Buchanan St. and Campus Drive, which opened in Fall 2005 for classes in painting, drawing, printmaking (intaglio, lithography and silkscreen), digital graphics, digital photography, multi-media and architectural design. A new stop on the East/West bus route stops at the ACT Warehouse.

The sculpture studio is located at 406 Oregon Street west of the ACT Warehouse. The high ceilings and slab concrete floors makes it a sufficiently versatile facility to handle large scale works of art. The interior is divided into large areas for welding in steel and woodworking.

Studio classes in photography are offered collaboratively with the Center for Documentary Studies, (http://www-cds.aas.duke.edu) located at 1317 W. Pettigrew St., off of Swift Ave.

C. Art History/Visual Arts
A combined major in Art History and Visual Arts requires at least fourteen courses. These include: two lower-level courses; Visual Arts 100 (Drawing), and Art History 69 or 70 (Survey of Art); and twelve upper-level courses. The twelve upper-level courses are to be divided as follows: Art History: Six upper-level courses distributed across the fields of ancient, medieval, Renaissance/baroque, modern, and non-western (pre-Columbian, African, Asian). Students must take at least one course in four of these five areas. At least one of these courses must be a 200-level seminar. Visual Arts: Six 100-level courses including a minimum of one course in at least three of the following primary areas of instruction: film/video/digital, graphic design, painting, photography, printmaking, and sculpture. Students are encouraged to enroll as seniors in an independent study and, during the spring of that year, in Visual Arts 269S (Special Topics in Visual Arts).

D. The Visual Studies Major
A Major in Visual Studies will focus on, but will not be limited to, the following areas:

1. visual literacy from antiquity to the contemporary;
2. histories of technologies of visualization from antiquity to the present (ancient “pointing” systems, 16th “Century “camera obscura,” photography, television, avant-garde film and video, virtual reality, the Internet and Cyberspace;
3. problems in scientific visualization from micro to macro imaging (thermal, X-Ray, Very Large Array, Hubble) to visualizing contagion, etc.);
4. popular cultural products and practices from Roman spectacle and Byzantine dress codes to contemporary fashion, advertising, political cartoons, and industrial design;
5. the body as performative of visual expression, experience, and culture;
6. visualization of race, sex, gender, class, and trauma;
7. exhibition and museum culture; and
8. histories and theories of vision and visuality, including theories of the gaze, surveillance practices from the panopticon to satellites, and other forms of scopic regimes.The Major in Visual Studies requires an introductory and capstone course: VISUALST 100D (Introduction to Visual Culture), which introduces students to the rhetoric of images and the broad scope of visual culture; VISUALST 200S (Theories of Visual Studies) is a capstone course focusing on advanced theories in Visual Studies and individual senior projects (which may be undertaken as theses or visual production).

• Major Bulletin Description

The Visual Studies major requires thirteen courses, at least eight of which must be at the 100-level or above. Courses required for the major include VISUALST 100D (Introduction to Visual Culture) and the capstone course VISUALST 200S (Theories of Visual Studies), as well as eleven additional courses to be divided as follows: 3 courses in Visual Studies (VISUALST); 2 courses in Art History (ARTHIST 69,70, or 71 [Survey Art] and one 100-level course); 2 courses in Visual Arts, ARTSVIS 54 [Introduction to Visual Practice] and one 100-level); and 4 previously approved cross-listed courses in any of the departments participating in this major.

• Minor Bulletin Description

A student is eligible for a Minor in Visual Studies (VISUALST) by taking five courses to be distributed as follows: any three courses at the 100 or 200-level in VISUALST and any two courses in any cross-listed discipline previously approved for the Visual Studies major.

Visual Studies course number and Course title

VISUALST 100D Introduction to Visual Culture (Stiles) VISUALST 150 Roman Spectacle (Dillon) VISUALST 154 The Art of Medieval Southern Italy (Bruzelius) VISUALST 156 Pilgrimage and Tourism (Wharton) VISUALST 157 Netherlandish Art and Visual Culture in the 17th and 18th Century (Van Miegroet) VISUALST 160 Paris, a City and its Culture (McWilliam) VISUALST 166 Cultural History of Graphic Reproduction (Powell) VISUALST 172 History of the Museum (Abe) VISUALST 173 Chinese Visual Culture (Abe) VISUALST 175 Contemporary Japanese Visual Culture (Weisenfeld) VISUALST 180 Feminism & Visual Culture (Stiles) VISUALST 181 Performance Art History and Theory (Stiles) VISUALST 183 History of the Televisual (Olson) VISUALST 184S Visual Cultures of Medicine (Olson) VISUALST 185 Digital Perspectives (Seaman) VISUALST 189S Topics in Visual Studies (staff) VISUALST 190 Topics in Visual Studies (staff) VISUALST 191 Digital Imaging (staff) VISUALST 192 Virtual Form & Space (staff) VISUALST 193 Visual Culture & Photography (Rankin) VISUALST 194 Graphic Design in Multimedia: Theory & Practice (staff) VISUALST 195 Advanced Visual Practice (Lasch) VISUALST 196S The Photobook (Noland) VISUALST 198A Research Independent Study VISUALST 198B Independent Study VISUALST 199A Research Independent Study VISUALST 199B Independent Study VISUALST 200S Theories of Visual Studies (Abe or Stiles) VISUALST 201SL Wired! New Representational Technologies (Bruzelius, Dillon, R. Brady) VISUALST 205S Representations of War (Dillon) VISUALST 215S From Caricature to Comic Strip (McWilliam) VISUALST 220S Harlem Renaissance (Powell) VISUALST 221S Black Visual Theory (Powell) VISUALST 225S Latin American Modernism and Visual Culture (Gabara) VISUALST 230S Trauma in Art, Literature, Film and Visual Culture (Stiles) VISUALST 231S Spatial Practices (Wharton) VISUALST 235S Poverty of the Visual (Lasch) VISUALST 236S Experimental Communities (Lasch) VISUALST 260S Topics in Visual Studies (staff) VISUALST 265S Emergent Embodied Interface Design (Seaman) VISUALST 298A Research Independent Study VISUALST 298B Independent Study VISUALST 299A Research Independent Study VISUALST 299B Independent Study

Minors in Art, Art History & Visual Studies

Art History: A student is eligible for a minor in Art History by taking any five Art History courses at the 100-level.

Visual Arts: A student is eligible for a minor in Visual Arts by taking any five Visual Arts courses at the 100-leve.

Visual Studies: A student is eligible for a Minor in Visual Studies (VISUALST) by taking five courses to be distributed as follows: any three courses at the 100 or 200-level in VISUALST and any two courses in any cross-listed discipline previously approved for the Visual Studies major.

Photography: A student is eligible for a minor in Photography by taking five courses at the 100 level or above, with the following courses required: ARTSVIS 115, Introductory Photography; ARTSVIS 218 Individual Project; and ARTHIST 199, History of Photography.

One transfer course may count toward the requirements for the minor; courses taken pass/fail or Advanced Placement credits do not count toward the minor.

Concentration in Architecture
The department offers a B.A. degree in art history with a Concentration in Architecture. Certification of this concentration is designated on the official transcript. Thirteen courses are required in four broad areas: (1) ARTHIST 291/2 on a subject approved by the concentration in architecture advisor; (2) seven additional courses in Art History, including at least three of the following: ARTHIST 104, 110, 111, 130, 145, 182, 189AD or BD, 206S or (“topics” courses that focus on space or architecture may be used to fulfill this requirement, or other courses approved by the concentration in architecture advisor); (3) two courses in the Visual Arts, including ARTSVIS 100; (4) three courses in Mathematics, Physics, and/or Engineering courses that offer or require advanced math or physics skills (recommended courses include Mathematics 31, 32, and 103; Physics 53L or 54L; Civil and Environmental Engineering 161 or 162). Distribution requirements for the major must be fulfilled.