Weekly Schedule of Readings and Discussion Topics
Additional materials such as study questions, handouts, supplementary readings, etc. will be made available online through the links below.
CP = Course Packet (Hardcopy); LL = Taylor Text
Session 1: Visual Studies and Visual Culture
Required Reading
> Course Introduction [HTML w/illustrations]
> Course Introduction [PDF]Supplementary Materials
> Slide Set 1
Session 2: Approaches to Vision and Visuality
Required Reading
Walker & Chaplin, "The Concept of the Visual" [CP]
Joshua Taylor, 51-76; 139-158 [LL]Supplementary Materials
> Slide Set 2
> Annotations from Class Presentation
Session 3: Form and Popular Culture: The Role of the Avant-Garde
Required Reading
> Clement Greenberg, "Avant-Garde and Kitsch" [PDF]Supplementary Materials
> Study Questions, "Avant-Garde and Kitsch" [HTML]
> Notes from Class Presentation: "Avant-Garde and Kitsch" [HTML]
> Links to the two videos screened in class and to Sarah Boxer's article in the NYTimes.
> T. R. Quigley, "Summary of Greenberg's Argument in 'Avant-Garde and Kitsch'" [PDF]
> T. R. Quigley, "British Empiricism and Inner Sense Theories" [PDF; links 18th C. moral theory and aesthetic judgment.]
> T. R. Quigley, "Philosophical Background to 19th Century Modernism" [PDF; a useful prelude to your reading of Kant.]
> Clive Bell, "Art" [HTML; an early 20th C.art critic and proponent of formalism.]
> T. R. Quigley, "Summary of Bell's Argument" [HTML]
Slide Set 3a: > Impressionism; > Neo-Impressionism; > Futurism; > Cubism; > Surrealism; > Kandinsky; > Misc. Artists
> Slide Set 3b: Avant-Garde and Kitsch
Session 4: Background -- The Beautiful and the Sublime
Required Reading
> Monroe Beardsley, "German Idealism" [CP]Supplementary Materials
> T. R. Quigley, "Outline of Kant's Aesthetic Theory" [PDF]
Session 5: Technology, Aura, and the Work of Art
Required Reading
> Walter Benjamin, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" [PDF]Supplementary Materials
> Slide Set 5
Required Reading
> Theodor Adorno, "The Culture Industry" [PDF]Supplementary Materials
> Slide Set 6
Session 7: Structuralism and Semiotics
Required Reading
> M. Underwood, "Code";"Code and Ideology";"Introduction to Semiotics" - "Criticism of Semiotics" [HTML][Underwood's texts are part of an electronic database of information about semiotics and communication theory. The titles above (in quotes) are the main sections in Underwood's database that you'll need to read for this week's discussion. There is a handy index of titles on the left side of his web page which help you locate most articles. After reading "Code", follow the link above and select "Ia" in the index, and under "ideology" select "codes and ideology". When you get to the end of "Codes and Ideology", select "Introduction to Semiotics" at the bottom of the page. Subsequent sections in the introduction will be found on this page. Be sure to read all sections from "sign" to "structuralism and poststructuralism", then go on to "Criticism of Semiotics".]
Supplementary Materials
> T. R. Quigley, "Saussure: From Structuralism to Poststructuralism" [HTML]
> T. R. Quigley, "Introduction to Semiotics" [PDF]
> Slide Set -- Semiotics
Session 8: From Structuralism to Poststructuralism
Required Reading
> Roland Barthes, "From Work to Text" [PDF; annotated version]
> Roland Barthes, Excerpt from "Rhetoric of the Image" [HTML]Supplementary Materials
> Summary of Barthes' Propositions in "From Work to Text" [PDF]
Session 9: Psychoanalytic Theory and Surrealism
Required Reading
Sigmund Freud, "Fetishism" [CP]
> Christian Metz, "Photography and Fetish" [PDF]Supplementary Materials
> T. R. Quigley, "Brief Introduction to Psychoanalytic Theory"
> Dylan Evans, Lacan's "Order" (Imaginary, Symbolic, and Real) [PDF]
Jacques Lacan, "The Mirror Stage as Formative of the Function of the I" [CP]
> T. R. Quigley, "Metz: Summary" [PDF]
> Slavoj Zizek, "The Interpassive Subject" [PDF]
> Sue Taylor, "Uncanny Automata: Fetishism -- The Doll as Substitute" [PDF]
> Slide Set -- Hans Bellmer
> Slide Set 8: Surrealism and Psychoanalysis
Session 10: Pastiche, the Abject, and the Monstrous Feminine
Required Reading
> Laura Mulvey, "A Phantasmagoria of the Female Body: The Work of Cindy Sherman" [PDF]Supplementary Materials
> Laura Mulvey, "Some Thoughts on Theories of Fetishism in the Context of Contemporary Culture" [PDF]
> T. R. Quigley, "Explanation, Understanding, Lacan, and Fetishism: A Follow-Up Discussion" [PDF]
> Slide Set 9: Cindy Sherman
Session11: Film Screening [Errol Morris, The Thin Blue Line]
Required Reading
> Errol Morris, "The Anti-Post-Modern Post-Modernist" [PDF]
Session 12: Narrative, Truth, and the Cinematic Image
Required Reading
> Mark Singer, "Predilections" [PDF]Supplementary Materials
> T. R. Quigley, "Rough Notes on the Truth Value of Images" [PDF]
Session 13: Epistemology of Visual Images
Required Reading
> Malcolm Gladwell, "The Picture Problem: Mammography, Air Power, and the Limits of Looking" [PDF]
> Linda Williams, "Mirrors Without Memories: Truth, History, and the New Documentary" [PDF]Supplementary Materials
> Slide Set - Truth and Information
Session 14: Social Control, Visuality, and Social Change
Required Reading
> Gilles Deleuze, "Postscript on the Societies of Control" [PDF]Supplementary Materials
> Michel Foucault, "Panopticism" [PDF]
> Slide Set 14
Last Update: 18 Feb 06