The Visual Studies Companion
1st Edition
Will be published approx. on 17. November 2026
Book
Hardback
666 pages
978-1-032-74715-6 (ISBN)
Description
The Visual Studies Companion explores visual studies globally, combining newly commissioned essays with influential archival articles from the Visual Studies journal to broaden dialogue and deepen understanding across disciplines.
This volume delivers a rich, multi-format approach to visual scholarship. It features traditional essays, interviews, visual essays, a syllabus for teaching with visual studies, critical pieces reprinted from the journal, and reflexive dialogues. Readers will explore visual studies as both a field of study and methodological lens, examining its relationship to various disciplines including art history, cultural studies, sociology, and anthropology. The Companion addresses practices of writing, visualizing, and communicating ideas; distribution of knowledge from film and photography to exhibitions and political discourse; and critical debates on ethics, coloniality, representation, and inclusion.
This wide-ranging, interdisciplinary volume will be of interest to students and scholars across the social sciences and the arts and humanities (e.g., sociology, anthropology, geography, cultural and media studies, documentary film and photography, information technology, education, communication studies, art history and visual culture), as well as other fields concerned with image-based study.
This volume delivers a rich, multi-format approach to visual scholarship. It features traditional essays, interviews, visual essays, a syllabus for teaching with visual studies, critical pieces reprinted from the journal, and reflexive dialogues. Readers will explore visual studies as both a field of study and methodological lens, examining its relationship to various disciplines including art history, cultural studies, sociology, and anthropology. The Companion addresses practices of writing, visualizing, and communicating ideas; distribution of knowledge from film and photography to exhibitions and political discourse; and critical debates on ethics, coloniality, representation, and inclusion.
This wide-ranging, interdisciplinary volume will be of interest to students and scholars across the social sciences and the arts and humanities (e.g., sociology, anthropology, geography, cultural and media studies, documentary film and photography, information technology, education, communication studies, art history and visual culture), as well as other fields concerned with image-based study.
Reviews / Votes
"In its forty-year history, the field of visual studies has developed from a project aimed at enlarging art history's subjects and theories to a politically engaged venue for exploring the visual dimensions of contemporary life. This book is an enormous achievement of condensation and clarity, and showcases one of visual studies' more significant and less appreciated properties: unlike art history, visual studies continues to speak with a coherent voice, aimed directly at the present moment, its politics and its possibilities."- James Elkins, E.C. Chadbourne Professor in the Department of Art History, Theory, and Criticism, School of the Art Institute of Chicago
"The Visual Studies Companion presents a rich landscape in visual studies focusing on previously understudied topics, including multisensory approaches, and discusses new ways of thinking about digital relationalities and transgressing power. The collection addresses current ethical challenges, suggests new avenues of research, and highlights the necessity of the collaborative nature of future methodologies. This book will be indispensable for anyone with a serious interest in the field of the visual.
- Margaret Dikovitskaya, Professor at Columbia University and author of Visual Culture: The Study of the Visual after the Cultural Turn (2005)
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Target group
College/higher education
Postgraduate and Undergraduate Advanced
Illustrations
40 farbige Abbildungen, 93 s/w Photographien bzw. Rasterbilder, 40 Farbfotos bzw. farbige Rasterbilder, 2 s/w Tabellen, 93 s/w Abbildungen
2 Tables, black and white; 40 Halftones, color; 93 Halftones, black and white; 40 Illustrations, color; 93 Illustrations, black and white
Dimensions
Height: 246 mm
Width: 174 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-032-74715-6 (9781032747156)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Susan Hansen | Kate Korroch | Julie Patarin-Jossec
The Visual Studies Companion
E-Book
approx. 11/2026
Routledge
€66.99
Not yet available
Susan Hansen | Kate Korroch | Julie Patarin-Jossec
The Visual Studies Companion
E-Book
approx. 11/2026
Routledge
€66.99
Not yet available
Persons
Susan Hansen (AU/UK) is President of the IVSA and Co-Chair of the Visual Methods Group at Middlesex University London; former Editor of Visual Studies; and founding Editor of Nuart Journal. Their work applies ethnomethodological and conversation analytic methods to visual studies.
Kate Korroch (US) is an Editor of Visual Studies; Editorial Assistant for Art Journal; and founding Editor of Refract: An Open Access Visual Studies Journal. Their work examines queer and trans visual culture and art history.
Julie Patarin-Jossec (FR/US) is Visiting Assistant Professor in Sociology at DePaul University, and an Editor for Visual Studies, Echographies: Journal of Sound Ethnography, and Immaterial Books. Their work explores queer sea ecologies through video ethnography.
Kate Korroch (US) is an Editor of Visual Studies; Editorial Assistant for Art Journal; and founding Editor of Refract: An Open Access Visual Studies Journal. Their work examines queer and trans visual culture and art history.
Julie Patarin-Jossec (FR/US) is Visiting Assistant Professor in Sociology at DePaul University, and an Editor for Visual Studies, Echographies: Journal of Sound Ethnography, and Immaterial Books. Their work explores queer sea ecologies through video ethnography.
Content
Introduction to The Visual Studies Companion Part I: What Was Accomplished? Introduction to Part I: What Was Accomplished? 1. No Tyre, No Movement: Visual Ethnographies of Pneuma-City, Lagos, Nigeria Origins 2. ''I Hate Visual Culture': The Controversial Rise of Visual Studies and the Disciplinary Politics of the Visible (2020) 3. A Critical Assessment of the Russian-Language Literature in the Field of Visual Culture (2023) 4. Visual Sociology, Documentary Photography, and Photojournalism: It's (Almost) All a Matter of Context (1995) Classic Methods 5. What Constitutes an Image-Based Qualitative Methodology? (1996) 6. Talking About Pictures: A Case for Photo-Elicitation (2002) 7. Visual Methodologies Revisited: Some Current Developments and Outstanding Concerns Experimentations 8. The Visual Essay and Sociology (1991) 9. Does She Still Recognise You? (2021) 10. Visual Challenges to the Social Sciences 11. Understanding Innovation in Visual Methodologies and Methods Conversation with Greg Scott 12. Conversation with Greg Scott: Fostering Video Ethnographic Scholarship Part II: What Was Neglected? Introduction to Part II: What Was Neglected? 13. Unframing Wholesomeness: Jessie Willcox Smith, Gender, Domesticity, and the Archive Expansions 14. Multisensory Approaches in Migration Research: Reflections and Pathways (2024) 15. With Sonic Epistemology, Within Sonic Territory: An Essay in Fragments and Audio Descriptions 16. Speculative Fiction Documentary 17. Communication, Comics, and Diagrams Ethics 18. Whose Photo? Whose Voice? Who Listens?: 'Giving,' Silencing and Listening to Voice in Participatory Visual Projects (2018) 19. 'A Camera Is a Big Responsibility': A Lens for Analysing Children's Visual Voices (2010) 20. "We Know How to Navigate This Place, and You Won't": Centring Young People as Knowledge Producers and Right Bearers in Visual Research 21. Ethical Challenges in Visual Research Doing Reciprocity 22. "If Males Were Photographed Like Females" (1984) 23. Doing Drag: A Visual Case Study of Gender Performance (2000) 24. Establishing the Frame: Doing Queer Reciprocity and Reflecting on Earlier Works from Visual Studies 25. Queer Interventions, Now and Then 26. Locating Queerness in Katrin Mulder's and Emmy Scheele's "If Males Were Photographed Like Females" 27. From Underground to Primetime: The Dialectics of Drag in a Corporate Age 28. The Sensorial Spectacle of Gender Performance as a Stage for Experiential Studies Conversation with Ace Lehner 29. Conversation with Ace Lehner: Trans Visual Culture's Methodological Intervention Part III: What Could Be Done? Introduction to Part III: What Could Be Done? 30. On a Roller Coaster Ride: A Visual Essay on Exploring the Ups and Downs of Being Black Motherscholars Disciplinary Provocations 31. Virtual Reality as a Research Method: Is This the Future of Photo-Elicitation? (2019) 32. Vandalism and the Urban Visual: A Value Measure for Images in Cities 33. Roundtable on the State of Visual Studies: Collaborative Methods and Reciprocal Reflections Digital Relationalities 34. Same, Same, but Different: Making Sense of Changes in Social Media Visuality 35. Researching Social Media Pop Cultures: Case Studies and Reflections from Five Visual Platforms 36. Playing the Clancy Man: Video Games, Political Affect, and Tom Clancy's Brand 37. Operational Images of the Environment: Perspectives from the Artistic to the Curatorial Transgressing Power 38. The Call of the Bright Blanket: Anticolonial Aesthetics in the Synesthetic Regime of Art 39. Roma Culture and Visibility: Between External Gaze and Internal Agency in Roma Visual Representations 40. Romanticizing the Wounds of Others: Stereotype and the Future of Visual Studies Conversation with Ji Yoon Yang 41. Conversation with Ji Yoon Yang: Curation as Collective Care Conclusion: Curating Visual Studies