Introduction to Visual Culture: the Power of Images and Viewers

3.00 credits · Undergraduate

This course provides a cross-cultural and interdisciplinary introduction to visual culture from ancient civilizations to our contemporary global world. It presents key terms, concepts, and issues that are central to the study of images, visuality, practices of looking, as well as visual media, technology, and culture. It deconstructs the mechanism and impact of visual communication by illuminating how images exert power in specific geographic and cultural contexts, manufacture desire in viewers and consumers, and construct meaning and experience through time. Lectures target the acquisition of visual literacy and the understanding of visual culture around the world. (Format: Lecture 3 hours)