Summer Session II, 2005
HISC 106
Theories in Visual Culture

Mondays/Wednesdays 3:00 – 7:00 p.m.
Social Sciences I, Room 145

Instructor:

Lindsay Kelley
History of Consciousness
Email: lkelley@ucsc.edu
Office Hours: Wednesdays 1:30-2:30 & by appointment

Course Description:

We are all participants in "visual culture." This course interrogates our own and society's stakes in the visual by reading theories of visuality and exploring several overlapping worlds: science, advertising, film, and popular culture, to name just a few. As we read texts and watch films, we will see how visual objects and theories are deployed in a variety of contexts, from plastic surgery to transsexual subjectivity. A significant part of the course will be spent discussing visual objects from our own lives in an effort to reveal the depth of our involvement with image culture. Our readings will come from theorists of the visual, including W.J.T. Mitchell, Teresa de Lauretis, Jennifer Gonzalez, and Margaret Morse. Because visual cultures is an interdisciplinary enterprise, theories of the visual overlap with critical race studies, queer theory, film and television studies, art history and criticism, and psychoanalysis. Ideally, students will bring familiarity and experience with theoretical texts to the classroom.

Required Course Texts:

Available at Slug Books:
The Visual Culture Reader 2nd ed. London: Routledge, 2002
A course reader will be also be available from Slug Books.

Course Requirements:

Students will be expected to:

1. Attend all class sessions. Students with more than one non-excused class absence may not pass the class. (10%)
   
2. Participate actively in discussions during the class. (10%)
   
3. Students should come to each class section with a visual object (image, tape, drawing, film, solid object, website, or text) and be prepared to present on it to the class. Part of each class section will be dedicated to an analysis of the objects students bring to class. The "Assignment" descriptions that pepper the syllabus are intended to guide these presentations. (10%)
4. Students should write up one of their presentations, providing a close reading of the visual object itself in the light of a theory read in class. Does the object confirm the theory? Refute it? How does the object shed light on the theory? How does the theory shed light on the object? (25%)
5. Complete a 7-10 page final paper drawing on at least two authors not assigned during the class and two others from the class. Students will be required to meet with me at least once to discuss their paper topics. Papers are due on the final day of class. (45%)