Visual Culture and the Body

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

How do images and technologies of image reproduction affect how we think about bodies, sexuality, and gender? In this course, we will study the ways in which desire, power, politics, and playfulness are entangled with visual media and the representation of the body in Indian public culture. You will read about the gaze, the body, and media technologies with a regional focus on India. You will watch Indian popular and documentary films and explore how Indians express themselves through photography and poster art. The course pushes you to ask, is seeing culturally informed? And if so, how can we recognize, identify and appreciate what makes it so? Thinking through the materials in this course, you will learn how to ask, how do images affect you?