A History of Visual Culture: Western Civilization from the 18th to the 21st Century

by Jane Kromm (Editor), Susan Benforado Bakewell (Editor)

Overview

A History of Visual Culture is a history of ideas. The recent explosion of interest in visual culture suggests the phenomenon is very recent. But visual culture has a history. Knowledge began to be systematically grounded in observation and display from the Enlightenment. Since then, from the age of industrialisation and colonialism to today's globalised world, visual culture has continued to shape our ways of thinking and of interpreting the world.

Carefully structured to cover a wide history and geography, A History of Visual Culture is divided into themed sections - Revolt and Revolution; Science and Empiricism; Gaze and Spectacle; Acquisition, Display, and Desire; Conquest, Colonialism, and Globalization; Image and Reality; Media and Visual Technologies. Each section presents a carefully selected range of case studies from across the last 250 years, designed to illustrate how all kinds of visual media have shaped our technology, aesthetics, politics and culture.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781845204938
Publisher:	Berg Publishers
Publication date:	12/01/2009
Pages:	480
Product dimensions:	7.50(w) x 9.70(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Jane Kromm is Professor of Art History at Purchase College, State University of New York and author of The Art of Frenzy: Public Madness in the Visual Culture of Europe, 1500-1850.

Susan Benforado Bakewell is an independent curator and scholar, and has taught at the University of Texas, Arlington and Southern Methodist University. She is co-editor of Voices in New Mexico Art.

Table of Contents

PART ONE: REVOLT AND REVOLUTION * 1. The Politics of Visibility in Revolutionary France; Helen Weston, University College, London * 2. 19th c. Revolutions and Strategies of Visual Persuasion; Richard Taws, McGill University * 3. Socialist Movements and the Development of the Political Poster; Elizabeth Guffey, Purchase College * 4. Avant Gardes and the Culture of Protest; Jelena Stojanovic, Cornell University * PART TWO: SCIENCE AND EMPIRICISM * 5. To Collect is to Quantify:Visual Practices in the Development of Modern Science, * 6. Evolutionary Theory, Eugenics, and the Transparency of Inheritance Fae Brauer, University of New South Wales * 7. Biology and Crime: Degeneracy and the Visual Trace; Heather McPherson, University of Alabama at Birmingham * 8. Visual Models and Scientific Breakthroughs, Nancy Anderson, University of Buffalo * PART THREE: GAZE AND SPECTACLE * 9. Gaze, Body, and Sexuality: Modern Rituals of Looking and Being Looked At * 10. The Flaneur/Flaneuse Phenomenon * 11. Spectacle and the Visual Calibration of Class and Gender; Gemma Blackshaw, University of Plymouth * 12. Inscribing the Body: From Hysterical Marks to Tattoos and Piercings; Fae Brauer, University of New South Wales * PART FOUR: ACQUISITION, DISPLAY, AND DESIRE * 13. To the Arcade: the World of the Shop and the Store * 14. Ephemeral Exhibitions: Expositions and Fairs; Amy Ogata, Bard Graduate Center * 15. Changing Museum Spaces: The Prado and the Guggenheim; Susan Bakewell, University of Texas, Arlington * 16. Design for a Display Culture: Marimekko to Ikea; Michael Golec, Iowa State University * PART FIVE: CONQUEST, COLONIALISM, AND GLOBALIZATION * 17. Orientalism and its Visual Regimes Matthew Potter, University of Plymouth * 18. Marketing the Slave Trade * 19. Cultures of Confiscation; Kim Masteller, Asst. Curator, Islamic and Later Indian Art, Sackler Museum, Harvard University * 20. Trading Cultures: The Boundary Issues of Globalization; Nada Shabout, University of North Texas * PART SIX: IMAGE AND REALITY * 21. Multiples and Reproductions: The Social Economy of Prints and Photographs; Joy Sperling, Denison University * 22. Anti-realism and Photography, Jennifer Graham, University of Plymouth * 23. Inventing the Mise-en-Scene: German Expressionism and the Silent Film Set Veronika Feuchtner, Dartmouth College * 24. The Reality of the Abstract Image: Materiality and Transcendence; Eileen Doyle, Independent Scholar * PART SEVEN: MEDIA AND VISUAL TECHNOLOGIES * 25. Staying Connected: Information Technologies, Instantaneity, and Obsolescence * 26. I Looked it up on the Internet: Disorientation and Disinformation * 27. Carnival Mirrors: The Hermetic World of the Music Video, Kathryn Shields, University of Texas at Arlington * 28. The Digital Auteur: Sites, Blogs, and Self-fashioning; Matt Ferranto, Westchester Community College * 29. Fool the Eye and the Body: Feats of Simulation and the World of the Video Game; Martin Danahy, Brock University * Notes * Bibliography * Index

Editorial Reviews

Overall, A History of Visual Culture is a solid introductory reader. The essays are short, assume no conversancy in social or media theory and consistently make use of fresh visual examples.

Art Libraries Journal Lee Sorensen (Duke University)

Overall, A History of Visual Culture is a solid introductory reader. The essays are short, assume no conversancy in social or media theory and consistently make use of fresh visual examples.
Art Libraries Journal

Solid, scholarly writing that would be suitable, in many cases revelatory, for students at any level of college as well as established art and art history scholars, curators and those in many other historical disciplines.
ARLIS (Arts Libraries Society of North America)

This is the only treatment of visual culture with a broad temporal reach across a range of Western art practices that emphasizes the historical specificity of the visual experience. The approach - to highlight the key themes in visual culture and to illustrate these themes chronologically through carefully chosen case studies - is very effective.
Kathleen Stewart Howe, Art and Art History, Pomona College, USA

From the Publisher