In this course, we will focus on visual media – mostly film, TV, music videos, and visual art – to investigate how these produce the meanings that their viewers find pleasurable, interesting, convincing, repulsive, compelling, etc.
We will explore concepts and theories about e.g. …
- Visuality, vision, watching, looking, ...
- Visuality and genre in film
- Visuality vs. narrative in film
- Visual language of film-making: framing, diegesis, shots, editing, etc.
- Gender: The (male?) gaze
- Other gazes: Plural differences
- Practices of looking: Similarities and differences across different media
- Gazes and looks in the new media
Examples in class will range from traditions of painting to classic Hollywood films to music videos. You will learn about and apply independently a selected range of critical theories & methods to analyze - or read critically - different forms and examples of visual media. You are invited to collect and present examples of your own choice in team presentations and discuss them with your colleagues. Specifically, you will examine the examples with regard to difference: What gender and sexual differences (and what ethnic, class or other differences) come into play in any given reading or interpretation? Our overall goal will be to investigate how different theoretical perspectives and approaches make possible different readings (and may exclude others) - and thus to see how difference and identity interact with media images.
Requirements: Attendance, team presentations, discussions, readings, a final written essay and/or exam and/or video/media production incl. analysis.
A selection of relevant essays and excerpts from books will be made available. |
