ARTHIST 104 : Introduction to Visual Culture

The course explores the relation between the two terms ‘visual’ and ‘culture’ as constructions, examining visual forms of expressions, such as painting, photography, advertisement, comics and digital imagery. The course revolves around some of the following questions: What is the difference between the terms art and visual? What are the diverse forms of the visual? How has the visual impacted us today? How does culture determine visual form? With an emphasis on the determining role of visual culture in the wider culture to which it belongs, it draws on images from both western and non-western worlds to be analyzed and placed in their cultural context.