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Module description

This module aims to introduce students to the field of visual culture by concentrating specifically on the role of visual culture in the politics of memory around tragic loss and political violence. Concentrating on a wide range of material case studies from the past 100 years, the course will follow a chronological order to examine the many different visual ways that individual and collective social agents make sense of violence and loss in popular culture. You will be asked to read and engage with some key theoretical works in the field of visual culture, photography theory, media, memory, and trauma studies. You will be taught how to read and critically engage with different types of visual material.

We will consider:

· Monuments of the First World War;

· Iconic images of the Spanish Civil War;

· Counter-representations of the Holocaust;

· The Berlin Wall as a political media icon;

· Northern Irish Political Murals;

· Assassinated politicians or the Climate Crisis;

· Terrorist attacks (on Television and on Social Media Platforms);

· The so-called ‘migrant crisis’ and the art world.

Teaching Delivery

Each week you will be given a 1 hour lecture and will have a 1 hour seminar in smaller groups (max 15). Lectures will be taught using PowerPoint and will rely on a host of interdisciplinary sources and methodologies. Lectures will provide the historical and theoretical background necessary for our seminar discussions. You will be asked to read set texts available on moodle in preparation for each seminar class. Readings will often be accompanied by thinking points to help initiate and structure our group discussions. The first part of every seminar will concentrate on class readings and we will also analyze photographs and other visual material together in class. In addition to attending lectures and seminars you will be asked to watch at least 2 hours of Claude Lanzmann’s documentary Shoah and to read Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel Maus.

This module has historically been popular. If you try to register on this module, we would advise exploring additional options, just in case.

By the end of the module, you will have learned to:

1. Engage deeply and critically with ideas relating to the politics of seeing, to ethical problems relating to visual representation and to the study of traumatic events.

2. Identify the denotative, connotative and symbolic meaning of photographs and other visual material.

3. Produce a creative portfolio in a medium of your choosing (film, photography, collage, graphic novel, blog, PowerPoint presentation, painting etc...) to engage critically with theories from the course applying them to a case study of your choosing relating to trauma in visual culture.

Recommended Reading

In preparation for the module, we recommend reading one or more of these texts:

Barthes, Roland. Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography. New York: Hill and Wang, 1981.

Hallam, Elizabeth, and Jennifer Lorna. Hockey. Death, Memory, and Material Culture. Oxford: Berg, 2001.

Howells, Richard, and Joaquim Negreiros. Visual Culture. Cambridge: Polity, 2012.

Mirzoeff, Nicholas. An Introduction to Visual Culture. London: Routledge, 1999.

Mitchell, W. J. T. Image Science: Iconology, Visual Culture, and Media Aesthetics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015.

Rose, Gillian. Visual Methodologies: An Introduction to the Interpretation of Visual Materials. 4th edition. London: Sage 2016

Sontag, Susan. On Photography. London: Penguin Books, 1978.

Sturken, Marita. Tangled Memories: The Vietnam War, the AIDS Epidemic, and the Politics of Remembering. Berkeley: U of California, 1997.

The following is strongly recommended for purchase: Art Spiegelman. Maus. London: Penguin 2003.

Trigger warning: The module inevitably addresses some upsetting topics relating to war and political violence.