The Visual Studies Major
A Major in Visual Studies will focus on, but will not be limited to, the following areas:
- visual literacy from antiquity to the contemporary;
- 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);
- problems in scientific visualization from micro to macro imaging (thermal, X-Ray, Very Large Array, Hubble) to visualizing contagion, etc.);
- popular cultural products and practices from Roman spectacle and Byzantine dress codes to contemporary fashion, advertising, political cartoons, and industrial design;
- the body as performative of visual expression, experience, and culture;
- visualization of race, sex, gender, class, and trauma;
- exhibition and museum culture; and
- 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 100 (Introduction to Visual Culture), which introduces students to the rhetoric of images and the broad scope of visual culture; VISUALST 200 (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
- Minor 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 100 (Introduction to Visual Culture) and the capstone course VISUALST 200 (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.
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.
View Approved Courses for the Visual Studies Major