Visual Culture (VA 515)

2024 Spring
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
Vis. Arts&Vis.l Comm Des.(VA)
3
10
Kerem Ozan Bayraktar keremozan.bayraktar@sabanciuniv.edu,
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English
Doctoral, Master
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CONTENT

Accounts of the meanings of visual art have been conflicting Different notions have been deployed in order to suggest that visual art produces spatial meanings of its own or that its meanings are comparable to those of other cultural processes and practices. This course will be a review of theorisations of visual meaning and of vision and the ways in which each is used to explain or to comprehend the other. The introduction of other terms of explanation into constructions of vision and the meanings of visual objects will be critically assessed.

OBJECTIVE

To introduce and to assess accounts of the meaning of visual objects, phenomenological, semiological and post-structuralist, in particular those drawing on theories of discourse and deconstruction.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

PROGRAMME OUTCOMES


1. Develop and deepen the current and advanced knowledge in the field with original thought and/or research and come up with innovative definitions based on Master's degree qualifications 5

2. Conceive the interdisciplinary interaction which the field is related with ; come up with original solutions by using knowledge requiring proficiency on analysis, synthesis and assessment of new and complex ideas. 5

3. Evaluate and use new information within the field in a systematic approach. 4

4. Develop an innovative knowledge, method, design and/or practice or adapt an already known knowledge, method, design and/or practice to another field; research, conceive, design, adapt and implement an original subject. 4

5. Critical analysis, synthesis and evaluation of new and complex ideas. 5

6. Gain advanced level skills in the use of research methods in the field of study. 5

7. Contribute the progression in the field by producing an innovative idea, skill, design and/or practice or by adapting an already known idea, skill, design, and/or practice to a different field independently. 4

8. Broaden the borders of the knowledge in the field by producing or interpreting an original work or publishing at least one scientific paper in the field in national and/or international refereed journals. 5

9. Demonstrate leadership in contexts requiring innovative and interdisciplinary problem solving. 4

10. Develop new ideas and methods in the field by using high level mental processes such as creative and critical thinking, problem solving and decision making. 5

11. Investigate and improve social connections and their conducting norms and manage the actions to change them when necessary. 5

12. Defend original views when exchanging ideas in the field with professionals and communicate effectively by showing competence in the field. 5

13. Ability to communicate and discuss orally, in written and visually with peers by using a foreign language at least at a level of European Language Portfolio C1 General Level. 5

14. Contribute to the transition of the community to an information society and its sustainability process by introducing scientific, technological, social or cultural improvements. 5

15. Demonstrate functional interaction by using strategic decision making processes in solving problems encountered in the field. 4

16. Contribute to the solution finding process regarding social, scientific, cultural and ethical problems in the field and support the development of these values. 4


1. Develop the ability to use critical, analytical, and reflective thinking and reasoning 5

2. Reflect on social and ethical responsibilities in his/her professional life. 5

3. Gain experience and confidence in the dissemination of project/research outputs 5

4. Work responsibly and creatively as an individual or as a member or leader of a team and in multidisciplinary environments. 4

5. Communicate effectively by oral, written, graphical and technological means and have competency in English. 5

6. Independently reach and acquire information, and develop appreciation of the need for continuously learning and updating. 5


1. Develop, interpret and use statistical analyses in decision making.


1. Develop a thorough knowledge of theories, concepts, and research methods in the field and apply them in research design and data analysis. 5

2. Assess the impact of the economic, social, and political environment from a global, national and regional level. 5

3. Know how to access written and visual, primary and secondary sources of information, interpret concepts and data from a variety of sources in developing disciplinary and interdisciplinary analyses. 5


1. Demonstrate an understanding of the different approaches, concepts, and theoretical legacies in the interdisciplinary field of Cultural Studies.

2. Identify interconnections of knowledge within and across the disciplines of sociology, anthropology, literature, visual studies, philosophy, and psychology.

3. Demonstrate an understanding of the multiple methodologies used in cultural analysis; in particular, ethnographic fieldwork, participant-observation, interviewing, oral history, focus group discussions, textual criticism, and visual analysis

4. Cultivate a critical approach to the study of culture, articulating the relations between culture, power, and history; exploring cultural diversity and socio-cultural change at the local, national and global level; and exploring the corresponding demands for rights and social justice.

5. Be able to conduct original research and develop sound analysis of phenomena in the realm of cultural production, consumption, and representation; develop and present advanced oral and written evaluations of one's research and arguments.


1. Demonstrate an understanding of the different approaches, concepts, and theoretical legacies in the interdisciplinary field of Cultural Studies.

2. Identify interconnections of knowledge within and across the disciplines of sociology, anthropology, literature, visual studies, philosophy, and psychology.

3. Demonstrate an understanding of the multiple methodologies used in cultural analysis; in particular, ethnographic fieldwork, participant-observation, interviewing, oral history, focus group discussions, textual criticism, and visual analysis

4. Cultivate a critical approach to the study of culture, articulating the relations between culture, power, and history; exploring cultural diversity and socio-cultural change at the local, national and global level; and exploring the corresponding demands for rights and social justice.

5. Be able to conduct original research and develop sound analysis of phenomena in the realm of cultural production, consumption, and representation; develop and present advanced oral and written evaluations of one's research and arguments.

RECOMENDED or REQUIRED READINGS

Readings

Maurice Blanchot, 'The two versions of the imaginary', The space of literature, trans. Ann Smock, (Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 1982), 254-63.
Jean Baudrillard, 'The Precession of Simulacra', Art After Modernism: Rethinking Representation, ed. B. Wallis, (Boston: Godine, 1984), 253-281.
Andrew Benjamin, 'Interpreting Reflections: Painting Mirrors', Art, Mimesis and the Avant-Garde, (London: Routledge, 1991), 7-41.
Victor Burgin, 'The Absence of Presence: Conceptualism and Postmodernisms' and 'Seeing Sense', The End of Art Theory: Criticism and Postmodernity, (London: Macmillan, 1986), 29-50 and 51-70.
Sigmund Freud, 'Negation' (1925) and 'Fetishism' (1927), On Metapsychology: The Theory of Psychoanalysis, (Penguin Books: Harmondsworth 1984).
Roland Barthes, 'Rhetoric of the Image', Image-Music-Text, trans. S. Heath, (London: Fontana, 1980), 21-40.
Umberto Eco, 'The Open Work in the Visual Arts', The Open Work, trans. A. Cancogni, (Cambridge Mass.: Harvard UP, 1989), 84-104.
G.W.F. Hegel, Extracts from Aesthetics: Lectures on Fine Art, trans. T. M. Knox in ed. Clive Cazeaux, The Continental Aesthetics Reader, (London and New York: Routledge, 2000), 35-52.
Jacques Derrida, 'The Pit and the Pyramid: Introduction to Hegel's Semiology', Margins of Philosophy, trans. A. Bass, (Brighton: Harvester, 1982), 69-108.
Jacques Derrida, 'The Reduction of Indication', 'Meaning and Representation' and 'Signs and the Blink of an Eye', Speech and Phenomena and other essays on Husserl's Theory of Signs, trans. D. B. Allison, (Evanston: Northwestern UP, 1968), 27-31 and 48-69.
Martin Heidegger, 'The Origin of the Work of Art', Poetry, Language, Thought, trans. A. Hofstadter, (New York: Harper Books, 1975), 17-87.
Jacques Derrida, 'Restitutions of the truth in pointing', The Truth in Painting, trans. G Bennington and I. Macleod, (Chicago: Chicago UP, 1980), 342-56.
Maurice Merleau-Ponty, 'The Intertwining - The Chiasm', The Visible and the Invisible, trans. Alphonso Lingis, (Evanston: Northwestern UP, 1968).
Luce Irigaray, 'The Invisible of the Flesh: A Reading of Merleau-Ponty, The Visible and the Invisible, "The Intertwining - The Chiasm", An Ethics of Sexual Difference, trans. C. Burke and G.C. Gill, (London: Athlone Press, 1993), 151-84.
Rosalind Krauss, 'Richad Serra, a Translation', The Originality of the Avant-Garde and Other Modernist Myths, (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1986), 260-74.
Michel Foucault, This is not a pipe, trans J. Harkness, (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1982).
Norman Bryson, 'Image, discourse, power', Vision and Painting: The Logic of the Gaze, (New Haven: Yale UP, 1983).
Mary Kelly, 'Re-viewing Modernist Criticism', ed. B. Wallis, Art after Modernism: Rethinking Representation, 87-103.
Margaret Iversen, 'Saussure v. Peirce: Models for a Semiotics of Visual Art', eds Brozello and Rees, The New Art History, (London: Camden Press, 1986).
Mieke Bal and Norman Bryson, 'Semiotics and Art History: A Discussion of Context and Senders', ed. D. Preziosi, The Art of Art History, (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1998), 242-56.
Rosalind Krauss, 'A Voyage on the North Sea': Art in the Age of the Post-Medium Condition, (London: Thames and Hudson, 1999) 9-56.
D. N. Rodowick, 'Presenting the Figural', Reading the Figural, Or, Philosophy after the New Media, (Durham, NC: Duke UP, 2001), 1-44.