VISUAL CULTURE STUDIES
Modern cultural theory distinguishes two major "turns" since the crystallization of the humanities as disciplines in the 19th century. These are the "linguistic turn" which occurred in the first half of the 20th century, primarily inspired by the concepts of Ferdinand de Saussure; and the "pictorial or iconic turn" which emerged in the last quarter of the 20th century. The chief theoreticians of the latter were the American W. J. T. Mitchell and the German art historian, Hans Belting. It is quite obvious that our contemporary, digitalized and visuality-oriented culture cannot be examined without taking into consideration the above theoretical concerns which then have to be completed by case studies, drawn from various media of cultural representations.
The first few classes of the course establish the notion about the multimediality of culture and approach this phenomenon from various directions, such as classical rhetoric, semiotic concerns, and post-modern challenges.
An important historiographical aspect of the course deals with the debates concerning "Old and New Iconology." Beginning with the modern founders of iconology (Aby Warburg, Erwin Panofsky, Ernst Gombrich) we reach post-structuralist iconology (Hans Belting, Thomas Mitchell, James Elkins), including its critique as well as other "hot topics": e.g. the politics of images, visual expression and gender, the rhetoric of visual evidence, the performance of visual artefacts, visual encounters with “the other,” collecting and displaying knowledge, and, last but not least, the interplay between texts and images in describing nature and the world.
Furthermore, the review of the above mentioned theoretical debates is meant to be linked to the very topic of the students' research fields (journal exercise, see under assignments), thus utilizing the core course as a mandatory exercise of combining theory, practice and interpretation.
The learning outcome should consist of 1/ an accumulation of theoretical and historical knowledge about the mediality of culture and the uses of different media for cultural representations in different periods; 2/ students of the English masters' programs should get familiarized to reading scholarly discourse representing semiotic, art historical and cultural-historical problematization.
Modern cultural theory distinguishes two major "turns" since the crystallization of the humanities as disciplines in the 19th century. These are the "linguistic turn" which occurred in the first half of the 20th century, primarily inspired by the concepts of Ferdinand de Saussure; and the "pictorial or iconic turn" which emerged in the last quarter of the 20th century. The chief theoreticians of the latter were the American W. J. T. Mitchell and the German art historian, Hans Belting. It is quite obvious that our contemporary, digitalized and visuality-oriented culture cannot be examined without taking into consideration the above theoretical concerns which then have to be completed by case studies, drawn from various media of cultural representations.
The first few classes of the course establish the notion about the multimediality of culture and approach this phenomenon from various directions, such as classical rhetoric, semiotic concerns, and post-modern challenges.
An important historiographical aspect of the course deals with the debates concerning "Old and New Iconology." Beginning with the modern founders of iconology (Aby Warburg, Erwin Panofsky, Ernst Gombrich) we reach post-structuralist iconology (Hans Belting, Thomas Mitchell, James Elkins), including its critique as well as other "hot topics": e.g. the politics of images, visual expression and gender, the rhetoric of visual evidence, the performance of visual artefacts, visual encounters with “the other,” collecting and displaying knowledge, and, last but not least, the interplay between texts and images in describing nature and the world.
Furthermore, the review of the above mentioned theoretical debates is meant to be linked to the very topic of the students' research fields (journal exercise, see under assignments), thus utilizing the core course as a mandatory exercise of combining theory, practice and interpretation.
The learning outcome should consist of 1/ an accumulation of theoretical and historical knowledge about the mediality of culture and the uses of different media for cultural representations in different periods; 2/ students of the English masters' programs should get familiarized to reading scholarly discourse representing semiotic, art historical and cultural-historical problematization.
- Instructor: Endre Gyorgy Szonyi