COMM 450: VISUAL CULTURE AND COMMUNICATIONFall 2013
Professor: Susana Smith Bautista, Ph.D.
Office hours: 10-11 Fridays and by appointmentF 2-4:50 pm
ASC 228
Course Description:
This course investigates the meaning of visual culture and communication from the perspective of the “public,” starting in the eighteen-century through the present. Visual culture is most commonly experienced in the public sphere, including both public (civic) spaces and institutions such as museums that both require the constant negotiation between public and private interests. The course will also focus on the visual arts as a form of communication, and how they are integrated with culture and the public. First we will look at general ideas of culture and the public, then formulate an idea about public culture, and then explore important notions related to public visual culture in the arts such as power relations, social capital, universalism, participatory culture, activism, as well as ideas about mass culture and mass communication that are still pertinent today in the digital age with the popularity of digital communications technologies. The course will also include a visit to a local museum anda tour of public art, directly related to student projects on public visual culture in the present day.
Course Readings:
All course readings are uploaded as PDFs on the course Blackboard site.
Course Requirements and Expectations:
The course will be taught as a seminar, dependent on active student reading and participation. You are required to do all of the reading, attend all classes (including field trips), complete all assignments, and participate fully in class discussions. Attendance is mandatory and will be taken at the beginning of each class meeting. You are allowed three absences without explanation, after which there is a deduction of half a grade off the final grade for each unexcused absence. You may bring your laptops to class for note-taking only. If you abuse this privilege, you will be marked absent for that class period and laptops may be banned from the classroom for everyone.
Each week, one student will be responsible for preparing discussion questions and presenting the week’s readings. You are required to come to class ready to contribute, having read the required materials and thought about important questions to be raised in discussion. In addition to these presentations, you will participate in the course blog. During the semester, you will be required to post at least 10 times to the class blog. These blog posts should include a paragraph or two of commentary on the significance of the week’s readings in relation to the themes of the course, and can incorporate outside materials or events, pose questions for discussions, or respond thoughtfully to other postings. These comments must be posted by 6:00 pm on the day before class in order to receive credit, to give other students time to read them and respond. A final project will comprise a large part of the course requirements, to be decided on by week 6 of the semester by the student. This final project will be in the form of a written paper, double-spaced, 10-15 pages, and an in-class presentation using digital means.
Grade Breakdown
In-class Participation and Attendance 25%
In-class Reading Presentation 15%
Contribution to the Course Blog 20%
Final Project and Presentation 40%
All of your work will be graded on the following:
- Your understanding of the theories and case studies from the class materials
- How well you articulate your ideas and structure your argument
- Your ability to creatively explore ideas from the class
Academic Integrity:
The Annenberg School for Communication is committed to upholding the University's Academic Integrity code as detailed in the Campus Guide. It is the policy of the School of Communication to report all violations of the code. Any serious violation or pattern of violations of the Academic Integrity Code will result in the student's expulsion from the Communication major or minor. See section 11 of Scampus.
ADA Compliance Statement
Students requesting academic accommodations based on a disability are required to register with Disability Services and Programs (DSP) each semester. A letter of verification for approved accommodations can be obtained from DSP when adequate documentation is filed. Please be sure the letter is delivered to me as early in the semester as possible. DSP is open Monday-Friday, 8:30-5:00. The office is in Student Union 301 and their phone number is
(213) 740-0776. For additional information, see the Web page of the Disabilities Services
Program in SCAMPUS.
ESL Students
Please inform me as soon as possible if you require special accommodations based on your understanding of the English language.
Course Schedule (subject to change)
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Week1 (August 30): What is Culture?
This week starts the course with a general discussion about culture, one of the most difficult notions to describe, yet used commonly across all disciplines.
In-class video: Guillermo Gomez Pena and Coco Fusco, The Couple in the Cage (1993)
Bennett, T., Grossberg, L., & Morris, M. (2005). New keywords: A revised vocabulary of culture and society. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.
Read: pages 63-69
Geertz, Clifford. (1973).The interpretation of cultures: Selected essays. New York: Basic Books.
Read: pages 10-13 (section III) and pages 17-20 (section V)
Harrison, L. E., & Huntington, S. P. (Eds.). (2000). Culture matters: How values shape human progress. New York: Basic Books.
Read: Introduction by Lawrence E. Harrison (Why Culture Matters), pages xxiv - xxxii
Related Readings:
Benhabib, Seyla. (2002). The claims of culture: Equality and diversity in the global era. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
Bennett, T. (1999). Useful culture. In D. Boswell & J. Evans (Eds.), Representing the nation: A reader. Histories, heritage and museums (pp. 380–393). New York: Routledge.
Clifford, James. (1988). The predicament of culture: Twentieth-century ethnography, literature, and art. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988.
Grossberg, Lawrence, Nelson, Cary, & Treichler, Paula, Eds. (1992). Cultural Studies. Psychology Press.
Williams, Raymond. (1983). Culture and society: 1780 – 1950. New York: Columbia University Press, 1983.
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Week 2 (September 6): What (Who) is the Public?
This week looks at traditional notions of the public sphere and the public in the context of 19th century Europe. We will also explore the ideas of social capital and community and discuss if there is any validity in distinguishing between publics and communities.
Marx, Karl & Engels, Frederick. (1845-1846). The German ideology. In R. T. Craig & H. L. Muller. (Eds.). (2007). Theorizing communication: Readings across traditions. Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications.
Read: pages 433-436
Habermas, Jürgen. (1989). Structural transformation of the public sphere: An inquiry into a category of bourgeois society. (T. Burger, Trans. with the assistance of F. Lawrence). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. (first published in German in 1962)
Read: Chapter II (Social Structures of the Public Sphere), pages 27-56
Putnam, R. D. (2000). Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Read: Chapter 1 (Thinking about Social Change in America), pp. 15-30
Related Readings:
Warner, Michael. (2005). Publics and counterpublics. Brooklyn, NY: Zone Books.
Asen, Robert, & Brouwer, D. C. (Eds.). (2001). Counterpublics and the state. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Robbins, Bruce. (Ed.). (1993). The phantom public sphere. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Fraser, N. (1990). Rethinking the public sphere: A contribution to the critique of actually existing democracy. Social Text, 25/26, 56–80.
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Week 3 (September 13):Mass Culture
The concept of public culture will be explored this week, starting with traditional Marxist views of “mass” culture from the Industrial Age to the age of mass communication in the early 20th century. We will examine the early distinction that was made between high and low (popular, mass) culture, and the concerns that theorists had with the culture industry and the commodification of culture for the masses in modern capitalist society.
MacDonald, Dwight. (1953). A theory of mass culture. In John Durham Peters & Peter Simonson (Eds.). (2004). Mass communication and American social thought. Key texts, 1919 – 1968. New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Read: pages 343-353
DiMaggio, Paul. (1982). Cultural entrepreneurship in nineteenth-century Boston: the creation of an organizational base for high culture in America. Media, Culture and Society, 4, 33-50.
Read: pages 33-50
Bennett, Tony. (1995). Thebirth of the museum: History, theory, politics. New York: Routledge.
Read: Chapter 2 (The Exhibitionary Complex), pages 59-88
Related Readings:
Horkheimer, Max. (1941). Art and mass culture, Studies in Philosophy and Social Science 9, no. 2 (1941) in Durham Peters, John & Simonson, Peter. (Eds.), Mass communication and American social thought. Key texts, 1919 – 1968. New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2004.
Lazarsfeld, Paul F., & Merton, Robert K. (1948). Mass communication, popular taste, and organized social action in Durham Peters, John & Simonson, Peter. (Eds.), Mass communication and American social thought. Key texts, 1919 – 1968. New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2004.
Mills, C. Wright. (1956). The Mass Society from The Power Elite (pp. 387-400). In J. Durham Peters & P. Simonson (Eds.), Mass communication and American social thought. Key texts, 1919 – 1968. New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2004.
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Week 4 (September 20): The Role of the Museum
This week will look at the role of socio-cultural institutions to preserve and promote public culture, and specifically at the museum. We will look into the institutionalization of public culture in Europe and the United States, with the notions of spectacle and public exhibitions, and examine how the modern museum balances the interests of the public with that of the government.
Bennett, Tony. (1995). The formation of the museum. In The birth of the museum: History, theory, politics. New York: Routledge.
Read: Chapter 1 (The Formation of the Museum), pages 17-58
Weil, Stephen E. (2002). The museum and the public. In Making museums matter. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press.
Read Chapter 19 (The Museum and the Public), pages 195-213
Alpers, Svetlana. (1991). The museum as a way of seeing. In I. Karp, & S. D. Lavine (Eds.), Exhibiting cultures: The poetics and politics of museum display. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian institution Press.
Read: Chapter 1 (The Museum as a Way of Seeing), pages 25-32
Related Readings:
Putnam, James. (2001). Art and Artifact: The Museum as Medium. New York: Thames and Hudson.
Janes, Robert R. & Conaty, Gerald T. (Eds.). (2005). Looking reality in the eye: Museums and social responsibility. Calgary, Alberta: University of Calgary Press.
Appleton, Josie. (2007). Museums for ‘the people’ (pp. 114-132)? In S. Watson. (Ed.). Museums and their communities. New York: Routledge.
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Week 5(September 27): Exhibition Rhetorics
Written Proposal for Final Projects due by the beginning of class
This week examines the politics of display and the power of objects to further the agenda of various individuals and groups. The notion of exhibition rhetorics is based on that of visual rhetorics that has commonly been associated with modern and even postmodern society that is visually predominant. The power of visual images and objects acquire an even greater power when placed within the institutional framework of museums, but this effect often has mixed results depending on particular goals and receptions of the exhibitions.
In-class visit to USC Fisher Museum, talk withFisher Curator Ariadni Liokatis.
Ferguson, Bruce W. (1996). Exhibition rhetorics: material speech and utter sense. In R. Greenberg, B. W. Ferguson, & S. Nairne (Eds.). Thinking about exhibitions. New York: Routledge.
Read: Chapter 9 (Exhibition Rhetorics), pages 175 - 190
Buckley, Bernadette. (2008). China Design Now. Theory, Culture & Society, 25, 341-352.
Read: pages 341-352
Karp, Ivan & Wilson, Fred. Constructing the spectacle of culture in museums. In R. Greenberg, B. W. Ferguson, & S. Nairne. (Eds.). Thinking about exhibitions. New York: Routledge.
Read: Chapter 14 (Constructing the spectacle of culture in museums), pages 251 - 267
Related Readings:
Macdonald, Sharon & Basu, Paul. (Eds.). (2007). Exhibition experiments. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.
Baudrillard, Jean. (1993). The order of simulacra (pp. 50-86). In Symbolic exchange and death. (I. H. Grant, Trans.). Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications. (Original work published 1976)
Barthes, Roland. (1977). Rhetoric of the image (pp. 32-51). In Imagemusic text. London: Fontana Press.
Hall, Stuart. (1982). The rediscovery of ‘Ideology:’ Return on the repressed in media studies (pp. 56-90). In M. Gurevitch, T. Bunnett, J. Curran, & S. Wollacott (Eds.), Culture, Society and the Media. London: Methuen.
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Week 6(October 4): Field Trip
Required: Meet with me to decide final project
Review exhibition website before class
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Week7(October 11): Politics and Public Culture
This week explores how elements of public culture have long been utilized by the state to further its interests at the time. The first public museums of 19th century Europe were used to achieve national goals and to glorify the nation. Cultural diplomacy and “soft power” have been a stable factor of modern governments to create a positive global image through the use of a nation’s art and artists, often in partnership with museums and other cultural institutions.
In-class video: Family of Man, Museum of Modern Art
Hooper-Greenhill, Eilean. (1992). Museums and the shaping of knowledge. New York: Routledge.
Read: Chapter 7 (The Disciplinary Museum), pages 167-190
Arndt, Richard. (2005). The first resort of kings: American cultural diplomacy in the twentieth century. Potomac Books.
Read: Chapter 16 (The Arts of Vision), pages 360-379
Related Readings:
Kammen, Michael. (2007). Culture and the state in America (pp. 69-96). In C. N. Blake (Ed.), The arts of democracy: Art, public culture, and the state. Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press.
Duncan, Carol. (1991). Art museums and the ritual of citizenship (pp. 88-103). In Karp, Ivan & Lavine, Steven D. (Eds.). Exhibitingcultures: The poetics and politics of museum display. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian institution Press.
Binkiewicz, Donna M. (2007). A modernist vision: The origins and early years of the National Endowment for the Arts’ Visual Arts Program (pp. 171-196). In C. N. Blake (Ed.), The arts of democracy: Art, public culture, and the state. Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press.
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Week 8 (October 18): Memory and Public Culture
This week will explore memory as a social construction and how it is preserved and reevaluated in the public through cultural institutions and communal experiences. Memory is an important element to thinking about public culture and the role of institutions. We will look at examples of how museums, collections, and exhibitions have been used in the service of memory, questioning whose memory is being addressed, often with conflicting and overlapping interests.
In-class visit by Ioana Literat, USC Annenberg Ph.D. Candidate, talking about The Names Project (Aids Memorial Quilt). Review website before class
Gallagher, Victoria J. (1995). Remembering together: Rhetorical integration and the case of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial. The Southern Communication Journal, 60.2, 109-119.
Read: pages 109-119
Huyssen, Andreas. (2000). Present pasts: Media, politics, amnesia.Public Culture, 12, 21-38.
Read: pages 21-38
Duffy, Terence. (2007). The Holocaust museum concept. In S. Watson. (Ed.). Museums and their communities. New York: Routledge.
Read: pages 452-456
Related Readings:
Anderson, Benedict. (1983). Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. New York: Verso.
Habermas, Jürgen. (1989). Political functions of the public sphere. In Structural transformation of the public sphere: An inquiry into a category of bourgeois society (pp. 57-88). (T. Burger, Trans. with the assistance of F. Lawrence). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. (first published in German in 1962)
Merriman, Nick. (2007). The peopling of London project (pp. 335-357). In S. Watson. (Ed.). Museums and their communities. New York: Routledge.
Muzaini, Hamzah & Yeoh, Brenda S.A. (2007). Contesting ‘local’ commemoration of the Second World War: The case of the Changi Chapel and Museum in Singapore (pp. 418-434). In S. Watson. (Ed.). Museums and their communities. New York: Routledge.
Jenkins, Tiffany. (2007). Victims remembered (pp. 448-451). In S. Watson. (Ed.). Museums and their communities. New York: Routledge.
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Week 9 (October 25): Identity and Individualism
This week focuses on how different identities are important to consider when discussing public culture: personal identities, communal, ethnic, geographic, national, and global, and also institutions that possess an identity related to their particular goals and positions within society. The digital age has been described as having a culture of “networked individualism” that explains how new media support an era of individualism connected to a larger sphere of like-minded individuals and groups, resulting in online social networks, chat forums, and online communities of interest. When public culture is contested, struggles often arise to control its possession, interpretation, and display, such as with the global repatriation of artworks.
Goffman, Erving. The presentation of self in everyday life. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1959.
Read: Introduction, pages 1-16
Karp, Ivan. (1992). On civil society and social identity. In Karp, I., Kreamer, C. M., & Lavine, S. D. (Eds.). Museums and communities: The politics of public culture. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press.
Read: Chapter 1 (On Civil Society and Social Identity), pages 19-33
García Canclini, Néstor. (2001). Consumers and Citizens: Globalization and Multicultural Conflicts. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Read: Chapter 5 (Identities as a multimedia spectacle), pages 89-96
Related Readings:
Warner, Michael. (2005). Publics and counterpublics. Brooklyn, NY: Zone Books.
Hooper-Greenhill, Eilean. (1992). What is a museum? In Museums and the shaping of knowledge (pp. 1-22). New York: Routledge.
Giddens, Anthony. Modernity and self-identity. Self and society in the late modern age. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1991.
Holo, Selma. (2002). Conducting civic dialogue: A Challenging role for museums. Animating Democracy: Museums and Civic Dialogue Series. Washington, D.C.: Americans for the Arts.
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Week 10 (November 1): Public Art
This week focuses on the subject of public art, a familiar subject that sits at the intersection of public culture, art, and communication. Readings will explore critical issues surrounding public art, such as political interests, mass culture, and participatory culture, and the very definition of art. In class we will explore unusual examples of public art in order to discuss how they serve the respond to the needs and tastes of their particular public.