Master of Arts in Visual and Critical Studies: Courses

This graduate-level course immerses students in research methods and resources for use in their Visual and Critical Studies coursework and their theses. Guest speakers include librarians and curators. Students combine study of general research information with the pursuit of individual research projects directed by the instructor. [This is a required course for first-year students in the MA in VCS program.]

The moving image essay has foreshadowed a large body of research-based artwork in the last two decades. These visual essays are both at the limit and the very center of current moving-image practices. At our precise moment in the reconfiguration of media, the moving-image essay provides a compelling model for new forms of visual thought. This course is a close study of the essay form and its texts, along with screenings of the work of Alain Resnais, Jean-Luc Godard, Chris Marker, Agnes Varda, Alexander Kluge, Harun Farocki, Daniel Eisenberg, Isaac Julien, Rea Tajiri, and Mona Hatoum among others.

This independent study course is a continuation of Thesis I and is taken with the student's primary thesis advisor to facilitate completion of the thesis. Research and approval (by the advisor and the rest of the student's committee) of the thesis topic and approach should have been completed during Thesis I. Students work closely with a thesis advisor during this semester in addition to scheduling meetings with other faculty on his or her committee whose input may prove useful in their research. This course covers the final completion and submission of the master's thesis. It is required for the Master of Arts in Visual and Critical Studies.

This independent study course is a continuation of Thesis I and is taken with the student's primary thesis advisor to facilitate completion of the thesis. Research and approval (by the advisor and the rest of the student's committee) of the thesis topic and approach should have been completed during Thesis I. Students work closely with a thesis advisor during this semester in addition to scheduling meetings with other faculty on his or her committee whose input may prove useful in their research. This course covers the final completion and submission of the master's thesis. It is required for the Master of Arts in Visual and Critical Studies.

This independent study course is a continuation of Thesis I and is taken with the student's primary thesis advisor to facilitate completion of the thesis. Research and approval (by the advisor and the rest of the student's committee) of the thesis topic and approach should have been completed during Thesis I. Students work closely with a thesis advisor during this semester in addition to scheduling meetings with other faculty on his or her committee whose input may prove useful in their research. This course covers the final completion and submission of the master's thesis. It is required for the Master of Arts in Visual and Critical Studies.

This independent study course is a continuation of Thesis I and is taken with the student's primary thesis advisor to facilitate completion of the thesis. Research and approval (by the advisor and the rest of the student's committee) of the thesis topic and approach should have been completed during Thesis I. Students work closely with a thesis advisor during this semester in addition to scheduling meetings with other faculty on his or her committee whose input may prove useful in their research. This course covers the final completion and submission of the master's thesis. It is required for the Master of Arts in Visual and Critical Studies.

This independent study course is a continuation of Thesis I and is taken with the student's primary thesis advisor to facilitate completion of the thesis. Research and approval (by the advisor and the rest of the student's committee) of the thesis topic and approach should have been completed during Thesis I. Students work closely with a thesis advisor during this semester in addition to scheduling meetings with other faculty on his or her committee whose input may prove useful in their research. This course covers the final completion and submission of the master's thesis. It is required for the Master of Arts in Visual and Critical Studies.

This independent study course is a continuation of Thesis I and is taken with the student's primary thesis advisor to facilitate completion of the thesis. Research and approval (by the advisor and the rest of the student's committee) of the thesis topic and approach should have been completed during Thesis I. Students work closely with a thesis advisor during this semester in addition to scheduling meetings with other faculty on his or her committee whose input may prove useful in their research. This course covers the final completion and submission of the master's thesis. It is required for the Master of Arts in Visual and Critical Studies.

This independent study course is a continuation of Thesis I and is taken with the student's primary thesis advisor to facilitate completion of the thesis. Research and approval (by the advisor and the rest of the student's committee) of the thesis topic and approach should have been completed during Thesis I. Students work closely with a thesis advisor during this semester in addition to scheduling meetings with other faculty on his or her committee whose input may prove useful in their research. This course covers the final completion and submission of the master's thesis. It is required for the Master of Arts in Visual and Critical Studies.

This independent study course is a continuation of Thesis I and is taken with the student's primary thesis advisor to facilitate completion of the thesis. Research and approval (by the advisor and the rest of the student's committee) of the thesis topic and approach should have been completed during Thesis I. Students work closely with a thesis advisor during this semester in addition to scheduling meetings with other faculty on his or her committee whose input may prove useful in their research. This course covers the final completion and submission of the master's thesis. It is required for the Master of Arts in Visual and Critical Studies.

This independent study course is a continuation of Thesis I and is taken with the student's primary thesis advisor to facilitate completion of the thesis. Research and approval (by the advisor and the rest of the student's committee) of the thesis topic and approach should have been completed during Thesis I. Students work closely with a thesis advisor during this semester in addition to scheduling meetings with other faculty on his or her committee whose input may prove useful in their research. This course covers the final completion and submission of the master's thesis. It is required for the Master of Arts in Visual and Critical Studies.

This class is a generative interdisciplinary workshop for graduate students from any of the studio areas; from film, video & new media; from viscom; and from art ed or art therapy who are either already using aspects of narrative in their work or who are interested in beginning such a line of activity. To begin the semester, we'll examine how others have attempted to define elements of narrative & we'll engage those elements in isolation to generate (initially) single lines of text. In those lines, we'll look for how story asserts itself: in the mere descriptor (She was a girl who said 'anomie' more than once a week.); in the single line of dialogue ('You and I were clearly not carved from the same sweet potato.'), in the barest image, internal or external action, and so on; and we?ll consider how much of the untold is communicated by the told. After this work, we'll take our own paths, either making text-based work or combining story/aspects of story with another medium, and students will have many opportunities to share those works in progress with the class through manuscript exchange, screenings & performances, as well as studio visits. We may compile a shared reading list throughout the semester, but most texts will be individual recommendations based on the trajectories of your work in progress. The central text of this class is student work.

This class offers a graduate-level introduction to the history of visual studies, from English cultural studies in the 1960s to the present. It also considers the deeper historical roots of the field, going back to late Renaissance hermeneutics and nineteenth-century German historical research. The class's second objective is an introduction to the theories currently prevalent in the field, including postcolonial theory, identity politics, and theories of high art and popular art. Readings include Spivak, Michaels, Eagleton, Crimp, Mirzoeff, Mitchell, and Benjamin. [This is a required course for first-year students in the MA in VCS program.]

In the introduction to Burning with Desire, Geoffrey Batchen suggests that the study of photography has been largely divided by two opposing points of view, one that is interested in the essential, formal characteristics of photography and another that considers photography, and photographic meaning, to be determined by cultural context. Starting with this general rubric, we examine how that divide is addressed, reinforced, reconfigured and dismantled in recent studies of photography. Readings range from the pre-history of photography to digital imaging. We discuss works by cultural historians and art historians, and consider both popular and professional photographic practices. Texts will include books by Geoffrey Batchen, Carol Mavor, Robin Kelsey, Blake Stimson, and Christopher Pinney, among others. Class assignments include rigorous weekly discussions of the readings, two turns at leading class discussions, a final presentation based on the final project for the course, and a final project that may be written (15 pages) or studio-based.

Walter Benjamin's cultural criticism sought to grasp the nature of the dramatic social upheavals and transformations of his time (1892-1940). This work tried to discern emancipatory possibilities in contemporary social developments and the emergence of new cultural forms such as photography and cinema, but it was nonetheless preoccupied by problems of recovering past social and cultural history. In readings from Benjamin's major essays,the class seeks the critical intention of his cryptic utterances on problems of modern subjectivity in social history. These texts have provoked musings on temporality and the sense of history in present-day and 'postmodernist' social and cultural criticism. Other readings include selections from writers after Benjamin such as Susan Buck-Morss and filmmaker Alexander Kluge.

This is a writing workshop for art historians, critics, visual studies scholars, and art theorists. We bring together three discourses: the often impoverished talk about 'good writing' in academia (Alexander Nemerov, T.J. Clark, Leo Steinberg); the scattered examples of poststructural writing on art (Jean-Louis Schefer, Jean-Claude Lebensztejn, Helene Cixous, Griselda Pollock); and the flourishing experimental writing scene (Marjorie Perloff, Vanessa Place, Kenny Goldsmith, Caroline Bergvall, Craig Dworkin, and Christian Bok).

The thesis, as the final requirement to be fulfilled for the Masters of Art degree in Visual and Critical Studies, is expected to constitute an original contribution to the current body of research in its field. For the thesis, students are encouraged to use innovative approaches to research and analysis, and the formats with which they disseminate the outcomes of their research. The thesis requirement may be satisfied in a variety of ways incorporating visual, sonic, and verbal media. This seminar assists the student in selecting, researching, analyzing, designing, and, organizing the thesis. During this semester, the student selects her or his thesis advisor and two other faculty committee members and defends the proposal before this panel. The student also completes most of the research and the preliminary work for the thesis. This seminar is required for the Master of Arts in Visual and Critical Studies. Open to MAVCS students only.