Spectacles have been vehicles of social and political power at varying historical moments and locations. Since Guy Debord's Society of the Spectacle was published in 1967 the term has been deployed as a critical concept for thinking about visual culture. This course takes up a number of historical case studies in order to locate and situate phenomena associated with spectacle and spectacular visual entertainments. Topics may include the role of images in mediating contemporary social relations and the connection between spectacle and violence.

This course examines the relationship between mass media technologies and the idea of "reality" with an emphasis on the electronic and digital forms that dominate the discourse of "reality" in contemporary media culture, television, and the Internet. It will explore such questions as: How do shifting aesthetic conventions of realism, "reality" programming, and documentary inflect both theoretical and historical understandings of what constitutes reality? And how do our ideas of media technology inform these conventions and the understandings they produce?

This course considers how images of suburbia circulate between two interrelated but often counter-posed realms of visual culture: the popular genres of film, television, and new media entertainment and the iconography of "high" art practices such as painting, photography, and avant-garde film. In the process it addresses such fundamental issues as the relation between art and mass production, the aesthetics of private and public space, and the role that visual media play in constructing the socio-political space of the built environment.

Popular imagery from the Indian subcontinent is now increasingly visible in the global arena, particularly via the West's discovery of 'Bollywood.' But what have these images meant to South Asians themselves, what are their histories, what traditions and practices do they draw on? This course introduces key concepts for understanding South Asian visual culture and its multifaceted postcolonial modernity. Images examined include popular prints, film, photography, comic books, urban environments, advertisements, crafts, art, propaganda, rituals, television, and the internet.

An in-depth examination of topics in visual and media culture, from both historical and contemporary perspectives. Topics vary from year to year, and the content in any given year depends upon the instructor.

An in-depth examination of topics in visual and media culture, from both historical and contemporary perspectives. Topics vary from year to year, and the content in any given year depends upon the instructor.

This course provides a richly rewarding opportunity for third or higher year students who have developed some knowledge of visual culture and communication to work on the research project of a professor in return for 399Y course credit. Students enrolled have an opportunity to become involved in original research, enhance their research skills, and share in the excitement and discovery of acquiring new knowledge. Participating faculty members post their project descriptions for the following summer and fall/winter session on the ROP website in mid-February and students are invited to apply at that time. See Experiential and International Opportunities for more details.

This course is designed to serve as a capstone course for VCC specialists. Students engage with advanced readings in the field and refine skills in critical analysis of selected topics in VCC. A major focus is the design and implementation of an advanced research project selected in consultation with an instructor.

A research project carried out under the supervision of a faculty member. Students will carry out a research project on a selected topic related to VCC. Students must obtain signed permission from the faculty member they would like to have as their supervisor.

How has the legacy of modern colonialism across the globe impacted how we see images, how we think about them, and how we make them? And how do images perpetuate or overturn the legacy of colonial power relations? This course introduces students to the key concepts and debates in post-colonial theory as they relate to visual studies.

Based upon Michel Foucault's work on modern architectures of surveillance, control, and discipline, this course examines such modern and contemporary architectural-visual formations as the museum, domestic interior, cinema, and the residential and commercial skyscraper. Ways in which these sites have come to define notions of citizenship, privacy and publicity, and community will be of particular focus and concern.

This course investigates the conjunction of contemporary global capitalism, spectacle, and militarized neo-liberal governmentality in order to develop a critical understanding of the inter-related forces that constitute the most current and politically and ethically pressing events in the world today. These may include the war on terror, the disaster film genre, technologies of surveillance, politics of humiliation and scandal, and theological and financial speculation and visions of the future. Readings will draw upon both historical and in many cases the latest work in political theory, cinema and new media studies, critical philosophy, and religious studies.

This fourth-year interdisciplinary seminar provides students with an opportunity to examine theories of art and artistic practice in the context of contemporary visual culture, environmental devastation, global warming, climate injustice, and species extinction. Readings are drawn from eco-criticism and philosophy, visual studies and political theory, accompanied by contemporary art, film, literature in order to critically examine the concepts of “collective,” “afterlife,” and “things.”

This course examines the re-conception of traditional understandings of architecture and space -- public and private -- brought about by digital technologies. Notions of space affect our conceptions of political, social and inner life; this course investigates the impact of hyperspace and virtual reality on real and imagined space in a global context.

Introduces a variety of approaches for interpreting, criticizing, evaluating, and theorizing digital media with a particular emphasis on visual cultural phenomena including augmented reality and virtual reality. Examines how the thinking of new media is conditioned and altered via major theoretical models.

In 1977 the influential critic John Berger wrote an essay called “Why Look at Animals?” which framed humans’ relationship with animals as a matter of vision or, as we now say, of visual culture. More recently the humanities have been described as taking an “animal turn,” influenced by posthumanist thought and the idea that we are living in a period of unprecedented human impact on the planet, commonly (yet controversially) known as the Anthropocene. How has visual culture studies developed on or challenged Berger’s insights since he wrote that essay? Building on critiques of the category of “nature” as something that somehow pre-exists “culture” and is outside of it, which in turn challenges the terms of our distinctions between humans and animals, how does recent scholarship approach the place of images and vision in human-animal relations, and indeed the very idea of the animal itself?

This seminar investigates these questions through texts that discuss key theoretical questions and examine representations of animals across a variety of media, species, historical or geographical contexts, and disciplinary approaches.

Cars are the quintessential mass-produced commodities, and as such are central to the spread of capitalism and to the forms, spaces, affects, and imaginaries of modernity, postmodernity and beyond. Drawing on anthropology, geography, architectural theory and cinema studies as well as visual studies, art history and critical theory, this seminar examines the visual cultures of automobility over a range of historical periods and cultural contexts.

Explores intersections of art, pop culture and mass media in Europe and North America between World War II and 1970. Reviews how the definition of art moved into an expanded field of media culture.

In order to explore the complex social and political issues surrounding the discourse of democratic participation in today's "new media" culture, this course provides a historical and theoretical survey of "old" media technologies that embrace the aesthetics of participation, running from popular theatre forms (including vaudeville and Chautauqua) to call-in radio shows, avant-garde and novelty films, activist video art, and the audience-based talk and game shows of fifties television that most directly prefigure the participatory genres of contemporary media programming.

An in-depth examination of topics in visual and media culture, from both historical and contemporary perspectives. Topics vary from year to year, and the content in any given year depends upon the instructor.

An in-depth examination of topics in visual and media culture, from both historical and contemporary perspectives. Topics vary from year to year, and the content in any given year depends upon the instructor.

This internship course provides an opportunity for students to gain practical experience at an institution or business closely related to the arts and to visual studies. This is especially tailored for mature and self-disciplined students in their final year of study, who are ready to apply knowledge acquired in previous courses and are planning a career in the arts and cultural sector. Students registered in any DVS program are eligible to apply. Students work closely with the DVS internship coordinator to establish suitability. Regular updates and a final report and presentation will be required. The final grade for the course will be based on these, along with the assessment of the employer.

This internship course provides an opportunity for students to gain practical experience at an institution or business closely related to the arts and to visual studies. This is especially tailored for mature and self-disciplined students in their final year of study, who are ready to apply knowledge acquired in previous courses and are planning a career in the arts and cultural sector. Students registered in any DVS program are eligible to apply. Students work closely with the DVS internship coordinator to establish suitability. Regular updates and a final report and presentation will be required. The final grade for the course will be based on these, along with the assessment of the employer.

This foundation course introduces the core ideas students will explore throughout their studies in Women and Gender Studies. It immerses students in a highly participatory and provocative encounter with history, social theory, politics, policy, art and culture seen through a gender lens. It provides an interdisciplinary overview of the historical 'waves' of women's movements for equality in a global context and background to the development of Women/Gender Studies as a site of learning and feminist inquiry.

Using key feminist texts, this course advances students thinking, reading and writing in the discipline of Women and Gender Studies. The emphasis is placed on the development and application of interdisciplinary skills in the interpretation, analysis, criticism, and advocacy of ideas encountered in Women and Gender Studies.

This course provides an opportunity to engage in an in-depth examination of specialized and scholarly work within women, gender, and sexuality studies with a focus on the diverse and multidisciplinary expressions of feminist thought from the perspective of postcolonial, transnational, intersectional, diasporic, Black feminist, indigenous, and queer theories. This course situates the importance of praxis, the relationship between theory and social practice, to women, gender, and sexuality studies. Students will engage throughout with the relationship between theories of gender and sexuality as they relate to, and are inseparable from, an understanding of race and racial formations. It incorporates study of the themes and debates concerning the socially constructed categories of gender and sexuality in historical and contemporary contexts.

This interdisciplinary course focuses on the visions and methods that feminist scholars use to study women's and gender issues within and across a range of traditional disciplines. The course explores feminist epistemologies and research methods to understand how to carry out feminist research. We will focus on how feminist scholars challenge dominant theories of knowledge and the major methodologies employed in the social sciences and humanities.

This course explores the forms and functions of popular culture and its representation and understanding of the social category of women. It examines specific media forms including, but not limited to, film, song, visual arts, music, video, television, advertising and new media forms. It critically analyzes the impact of these portrayals on women in society while examining the cultural constructions of race, sexuality, class and ability.

This course covers a wide range of issues relating to female participation in public and private sectors of the today's Canadian workforce. It examines the relevance of education, perceptions, sexuality and family issues. Services and infrastructure, as well as collective bargaining are also addressed.

This course engages with feminist theories of embodiment to explore the body’s intersections with gender and technology. Drawing on the interdisciplinary fields of feminist studies, science and technology studies and disability studies, it explores a range of technological and scientific policies and processes that shape and affect bodies in transnational contexts.