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Imagining the Image 2020-2021

November 12, 2020/in Announcements /by Chantal
Imagining the Image 2020-2021

VU University
Organiser: dr. S. Lutticken
Period: The course has been scheduled on Tuesdays from 13:30 17:15. We will have sessions approximately every two weeks from the first week of February to the last week of May. 

Course Objective

Participants in this course will:

  1. analyse and compare relevant theories of the image in art history, media studies, design studies and the history of architecture.
  2. actively apply theories to selected case studies.
  3. examine the historicity of theories of the image and the potential contemporary relevance of older writings.
  4. reflect on the wider social and cultural relevance of various conceptualizations of the image and visibility.
Course Content

This course examines different conceptualizations of the image in the context of historical transformations of the arts. If, from visual studies to Bildwissenschaft, images and the visual have received a significant amount of scholarly and theoretical attention, the use and reflection on the notion of form seems to have migrated from disciplines such as art history and architectural history largely to fields such as (cultural) history, philosophy and literary studies.

In modern art and theory, form became a master signifier that to some extent displaced the image, understood as representation. Form is the image become autonomous. However, even if the notion of form was key to formalist approaches that prized the autonomy of art, form always threatened (or promise) to flow over into life; the romantic notion of the Lebensform (life form or form of life) has recently staged a return in Giorgio Agamben’s work (but not just there), and Judith Butler theorize social forms, such as that of the assembly; an approach taken up by artists such as Jonas Staal.

But are the crucial forms that shape social reality really visible? Marx’s value-form was anything but directly perceptible, and in our 21st-century Capitalocene, the world is being pre-formed in ways that once again cast doubt on our ability to imagine and to image this world.

More information

Registration:

NL: https://www.vu.nl/nl/opleidingen/bijvakken-voor-studenten/index.aspx

EN: https://www.vu.nl/en/programmes/short/secondary/index.aspx

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NOTE: This is not a NICA core activity but an elective announced on this site solely for  your information. You should register for this course through the university that offers it, and the credits you will earn will also be given out by that university. If your program includes a requirement to earn credits from a national research school, the credits for this elective do not count towards that requirement. You may need to acquire the permission of your programme coordinator and/or board of examinations in order to participate and earn credits for this elective.

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NICA archive 2010 – 2020

Read all articles published by Netherlands Institute for Cultural Analysis 2010 to 2020.

Affiliated Universities

  • Leiden University
  • Tilburg University
  • Radboud University
  • University of Amsterdam
  • Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
  • Erasmus University Rotterdam
  • Rijksuniversiteit Groningen
  • University of Maastricht
  • Utrecht University
  • Open University

National Research Schools

  • ARCHON, Research School of Archaeology
  • Huizinga Instituut
  • LOT, Netherlands Graduate School of Linguistics
  • NISIS, Netherlands Interuniversity School of Islamic Studies
  • NOG, Netherlands Research School of Gender Studies
  • NOSTER, Netherlands School for Advanced Studies in Theology and Religion
  • OIKOS, National Research School in Classical Studies
  • OSK, Dutch Postgraduate School for Art History
  • OSL, Onderzoekschool Literatuurwetenschap
  • OZSW, Dutch Research School of Philosophy
  • Posthumus Institute, Research School for Economic and Social History
  • Research School for Medieval Studies
  • RSPH, Research School Political History
  • RMeS, Research School for Media Studies
  • WTMC, Netherlands Graduate Research School of Science, Technology and Modern Culture

Useful Links

  • Academy of Creative and Performing Arts (ACPA)
  • Amsterdam Institute for Humanities Research (AIHR)
  • Amsterdam Research Center for Gender and Sexuality (ARC-GS)
  • Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis (ASCA)
  • Amsterdam School for Heritage, Memory and Material Culture (AHM)
  • Babylon: Center for the Study of Superdiversity, Tilburg University
  • Benelux Association for the Study of Art, Culture, and the Environment (BASCE)
  • Centre for BOLD Cities
  • Centre for Gender and Diversity, Maastricht University
  • Leiden University Centre for Cultural Analysis (LUCAS)
  • Platform for Postcolonial Readings
  • Radboud Institute for Culture & History (RICH)
  • Research Institute of the Faculty of Philosophy, Theology, and Religious Studies (PTR)
  • Environmental Humanities Center Amsterdam
  • Centre for Environmental Humanities (UU)
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