Visual Studies

Visual Studies is a phrase much bandied about and ballyhooed by artists and art historians, as well as those engaged in a variety of intellectual and technical pursuits--from film and television to the Internet and medical imaging. But what is visual culture? What is its theory and method? Visual Studies is a welcome text that rehearses the fundamental concepts driving this vibrant field of inquiry since its noisy emergence on to the academic scene. Tracing the history of visual studies, its disciplinary (or not) parameters, and outlining its relationship to traditionally important concepts---aesthetics, ideology, and performativity--Visual Studies dramatizes for students the stakes involved in any and all enterprises visual.