COMM 450: VISUAL CULTURE AND COMMUNICATION Fall 2009
Professor: Alison Trope, Ph.D. Lectures:
Office hours: T/Th 11-12pm and TH 3:30 (and by appointment) T/TH 2-3:20 pm
ASC 321F, ASC G34
Workshop Instructor: Jeff Watson Workshops:
THH Basement B4
Course Description:
This course investigates the meaning of visual culture and communication from the modern period through the present. Looking at a range of artifacts including fine art, photography, film, television, books, advertising, architecture and design, cityscapes, theme parks, shopping centers and graffiti, we will work to understand the way images and visual forms produce cultural meaning, and how those meanings are consumed. Objects of visual culture do not exist in a vacuum. Therefore, it will be important to examine each object of visual culture within a specific context (historical, social, institutional, political, geographic, economic, etc.). The interrelationship between artifacts and their contexts will elucidate the power dynamics and struggles central to visual culture and communication, allowing us to unearth the representational politics and culture wars that fundamentally define and impact the visual. Throughout the semester, each student will create a piece of visual culture, producing either a site-specific or cause-specific multimedia project in conjunction with MAC (see below).
Multimedia Across the College (MAC)
Multimedia Across the College (MAC) is a program that introduces multimedia as a critical and creative tool, that functions to enhance traditional forms of academic work within a USC College course. Students will learn basic skills in multimedia authoring and complete at least one project. Depending on the priorities of your professor, student multimedia projects will emphasize various combinations of audio-visual argumentation, data visualization, information design, sound design, images with textual annotation, and digitally assisted oral presentation.
Each MAC assignment will contain project evaluation guidelines clearly indicating what is expected for the assignment and how each component of the assignment will be evaluated. All four MAC workshops (see dates below) will meet in Taper basement, B4 and will be directed by an instructor from USC’s Institute for Multimedia Literacy (IML).
Course Readings:
All course readings (except for PDFs on blackboard, designated as BB below) can be found in a mandatory reader with photocopied articles available at Magic Machine in University Village. The reader includes a table of contents with full bibliographical information. Do not be alarmed by the size of the reader: My lectures will distill the main ideas and help you make concise study notes.
Course Requirements and Attendance:
Please keep in mind this is an upper division theory course, and there is a heavy reading load. You are required to do all of the reading, attend all classes, complete all assignments, and participate fully in discussion in class and in your workshops. There will be screenings and images shown nearly each class session for which you also will be responsible. Attendance is mandatory and will be taken each class meeting and in each workshop meeting. Attendance grade may be affected by your promptness and level of attention during class lecture and workshop. 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.
Personal computers and wireless Internet are a key part of today’s technological culture, but they also can distract you from the class discussion and dampen participation. You may bring your laptops to class for note-taking, but please refrain from browsing the internet, updating your Facebook profile, playing games, instant messaging, shopping, etc. Although you may think you are being discreet, 90% of the time students engaging in such behavior give themselves away (through inappropriate facial expressions, lack of eye contact, out of sync typing, etc.). Use of computer in the classroom is a privilege. If you abuse this privilege, you will be marked absent for that class period and laptops may be banned from the classroom.
You will receive details about each assignment separately. All assignments must be completed and handed in on time at the beginning of class to avoid a grade reduction (1/3 of a grade per day including weekends). If you are unable to turn in an assignment due to illness or a personal emergency, you must provide written documentation that will allow you to be excused, or discuss your situation with me in a timely manner. Do not wait until the end of the term to sort things out. Remember: this is YOUR responsibility.
Assignments and Grading:
You are responsible for the material covered in class and in the reading. You will be evaluated on the following:
1) the level of your engagement with the class materials (as evidenced in your written work, research, efforts in multimedia argumentation and design, and class participation)
2) your capacity to explain your ideas and analysis in articulate forms (whether written or visual)
3) your ability to creatively explore those theories and methodologies
All of your work will be graded on two primary evaluative scales:
1) how well it demonstrates an understanding of the theories and methodologies of the class
2) how well it articulates and structures its argument
The final course grade will be based on the following distribution:
Class participation 10%
Image Assignment 10%
Project Proposal 10%
Midterm Analysis/Write Up 20%
Flow Chart 10%
Storyboard/Project Draft 10%
Final Project 25%
Final Presentation 5%
You must complete ALL of these assignments in order to pass the class. Failure to complete ONE OR MORE of them will result in an F in the class.
Course Grading Policy:
Grades will be assigned as follows:
A outstanding, thoughtful and engaging work
B+/B above average work, demonstrating good insight into assignment
B-/C+ needs improvement on ideas, argument and follow through
C and below fulfilling the bare minimum and showing little understanding of the material
Each assignment will be worth 100 points and will be converted to a percentage score depending upon the weight assigned to each. Your percentage scores on the assignments will be totaled and translated to a letter grade per the scale shown below:
A+ = 97-100
A = 96-94 C = 76-74
A- = 93-90 C- = 73-70
B+ = 89-87 D+ = 69-67
B = 86-84 D = 66-64
B- = 83-80 D- = 63-60
C+ = 79-77 F = 59-0
If you have concerns regarding a grade on a given assignment, you must first wait 24 hours (cooling off period) before appealing it in writing, stating the reasons why you feel the grade is inaccurate. All concerns should be addressed within 10 days of receiving the graded assignment. After that, no appeals will be accepted for review and the grade will be considered final.
Academic Integrity:
When taking this class, you enter into a contract that states that all the work you are turning in is your own and no one else’s, and that you have not turned in any work for which you have received credit in another class. Do not take this policy lightly!
The School of Communication is committed to the highest standards of academic excellence and ethical support. It endorses and acts on the SCampus policies and procedures detailed in the section titled “University Sanction Guidelines.” These policies, procedures and guidelines will be assiduously upheld. They protect your rights, as well as those of the faculty. It is particularly important that you be aware of and avoid plagiarism, cheating on exams, submitting a paper to more than one professor, or submitting a paper authored by anyone other than yourself. Violations of this policy will result in a failing grade in the course, and be reported to the Office of Student Conduct. If you have any doubts about any of these practices, you must confer with the professor.
ADA Compliance Statement
Any student requesting academic accommodations based on a disability is required to register with Disability Services and Programs (DSP) each semester. A letter of verification for approved accommodations can be obtained from DSP. Please be sure the letter is delivered to me as early in the semester as possible. DSP is located in STU 301 and is open 8:30 a.m.- 5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday. The phone number for DSP is (213) 740-0776.
ESL Students
Please inform me as soon as possible if you require special accommodations based on your understanding of the English language.
Tentative Schedule (open to revision)
Week 1: What Is Visual Culture? Where is Visual Culture?
August 24: Course introduction: “show and tell”
August 26: Gillian Rose, “Researching Visual Materials: Towards a Critical
Visual Methodology”
E.H. Gombrich, “Standards of Truth: The Arrested Image and the
Moving Eye”
Week 2: Visual Culture, Vision and Modernity
September 1: Michel Foucault, “Panopticism” (BB)
OPTIONAL: Martin Jay, “Scopic Regimes of Modernity” (BB)
September 3: Tony Bennett, “The Exhibitionary Complex” (BB)
OPTIONAL: Jonathan Crary, “Modernizing Vision” (BB)
Week 3: Photography and Making Images
September 8: John Tagg, “A Democracy of the Image: Photographic Portraiture
and Commodity Production”
Shawn Michelle Smith, “Photographing the ‘American Negro’:
Nation, Race and Photography at the Paris Exposition of 1900”
Robert Hariman and John Louis Lucaites, “The Borders of the
Genre: Migrant Mother and the Times Square Kiss” (BB)
Barthes, Roland. “The Great Family of Man”
September 10: Garr Reynolds, “Why Design Matters,” “Design Basics” (BB)
Erin Kissane, “Typography Matters” (BB)
Explore website: Color Matters, “How Color Affects Us” (BB)
WORKSHOP 1: Image Analysis and Basics of Design
Week 4: Consuming Masterpieces: Mass Reproduction & Visual Culture
September 15: Katherine Martinez, “At Home with Mona Lisa: Consumers and
Commercial Visual Culture, 1880-1920”
Regina Lee Blaszcyzk, “The Colors of Modernism: Georgia
O’Keefe, Cheney Brothers and the Relationship Between Art
and Industry in the 1920s”
IMAGE ASSIGNMENT DUE
September 17: Steven Biel, “The ‘Original’”
Week 5: Visual Culture and Politics
September 22: T.V. Reed, “ACTing UP against AIDS: The (Very) Graphic Arts in
a Moment of Crisis”
September 24: W.J.T. Mitchell, “An Interview with Barbara Kruger” (BB)
W.J.T. Mitchell, “The Violence of Public Art: Do The Right Thing” (BB)
Week 6: Public Art
September 29: Nathan Glazer, “Subverting the Context: Olmsted’s Parks and
Serra’s Sculpture”
Erica Doss, “Contemporary Public Art Controversy: An
Introduction”
OPTIONAL: Casey Nelson Blake. “An Atmosphere of Effrontery:
Richard Serra, Tilted Arc, and the Crisis of Public Art” (BB)
October 1: Edward Tufte, excerpts from Visual Explanations: Images and
Quantities, Evidence and Narrative, chap. 4-6 (BB)
Donald Norman, “The Psychopathology of Everyday
Things” (BB)
Jakob Nielsen “How Users Read on the Web” (BB)
OPTIONAL: “Usability 101: Introduction to Usability,
Misconceptions About Usability” (BB)
OPTIONAL: Browse archive of Jakob Nielsen’s email column (BB)
WORKSHOP 2: Research Literacy and Application
Week 7: Picturing the Marginal
October 6: Donald Kuspit, “The Appropriation of Marginal Art in the 1980s” (BB)
PROJECT PROPOSAL DUE
October 8: Dick Hebdige, “Hiding in the Light: Youth Surveillance and
Display”
Derek Conrad Murray, “Hip Hop vs. High Art: Notes on Race as
Spectacle” (BB)
OPTIONAL: Carol Becker and Romi Crawford, “An Interview with
Paul D. Miller a.k.a. DJ Spooky—That Subliminal Kid” (BB)
OPTIONAL: Catherine A. Lutz and Jane L. Collins, “Becoming
America’s Lens on the World: National Geographic in the
Twentieth Century” (BB)
Week 8: Picturing the City
October 13: Rebecca Zurier, “Seeing New York: The Turn of the Century
Culture of Looking”
Joanne Lukitsh, “Alone on the Sidewalks of New York: Alfred
Stiegliz’s Photography, 1892-1913”
October 15: William R. Taylor, “Times Square as a National Event”
Cecile Whiting, “The Watts Towers as Urban Landmark” (BB)
Week 9: Window Shopping
October 20: William Leach, “Strategists of Display and the Production of
Desire”
Cécile Whting. “Shopping for Pop”
MIDTERM: PROJECT ANALYSIS DUE
October 22: Garr Reynolds, “Top Ten Slide Tips” (BB)
Edward Tufte, “PowerPoint Does Rocket Science—and Better
Techniques for Technical Reports” (BB)
Donald Norman, “In Defense of PowerPoint” (BB)
“Public Service Announcements: How Can We Make Them
Effective?” (BB)
WORKSHOP 3: Design/Multimodal Communication
Week 10: Expositions, Fairs and Theme Parks
October 27: Curtis M. Hinsley, “The World as Marketplace: Commodification of the
Exotic at the World’s Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893”
October 29: Michael Sorkin, “See You in Disneyland”
Richard Handler and Eric Gable, “Imag(in)ing Colonial
Williamsburg”
Week 11: Themed Living
November 3: Robert Venturi et. al., excerpts from Learning from Las Vegas: The
Forgotten Symbolism of Architectural Form (BB)
November 5: Christine M. Boyer, “Cities For Sale: Merchandising History at South
Street Seaport”
Reyner Banham, “Architecture II: Fantastic”
FLOW CHART DUE
Week 12: Museums, Monuments, and Civic Performance
November 10: Stephen Bann, “Shrines, Curiosities, and the Rhetoric of Display”
Carol Duncan, “The Art Museum as Ritual”
Marita Sturken, “Camera Images and National Meanings”
November 12: Scott Boylston, “Visual Propaganda in Soviet Russia” (BB)
Donald Norman, “Emotion & Design: Attractive Things Work
Better” (BB)
OPTIONAL: Bull & Back, “Introduction: Into Sound” (BB)
WORKSHOP 4: Visual Persuasion and Argumentation
Week 13: The Spectacle of Celebrity
November 17: Mark W. Rectanus, “Sponsoring Lifestyle: Travels with Annie
Lebovitz”
STORYBOARD/PROJECT DRAFT DUE
November 19: Joshua Gamson, “Hunting, Sporting, and the Willing Audience:
The Celebrity Watching Tourist Circuit”
Week 14:
November 24: TBD: FIELD TRIP, THE GROVE/FARMERS MARKET
November 26: HAPPY THANKSGIVING
Week 15: Course Conclusion: Presentations
December 1: Presentations (5)
December 3 Presentations (5)
FINAL PROJECT DUE
December 6-8: Study Days
December 10: 2pm (Presentations--8)
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