Icons and Idols

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

This course explores a number of historical periods that have been deemed iconoclastic, or particularly hostile to images: Byzantine Iconoclasm; the Protestant Reformation; the French and Russian Revolutions; and the Iconoclasm of Modern Art. What is the meaning of this hostility? Why have religious and political groups alike battled so violently to control the construction and consumption of visual images? Why are pictures so powerful? This course examines the terms of these debates over images, explores what’s at stake in the practices of destruction, preservation, and veneration of images, and considers how the multiple motivations for these practices (political, psychological, aesthetic) intersect with religious ways of being in the world.