Visual Culture

A number of faculty at Iowa are exploring in various ways the visual elements of culture, such as painting, film, photography, theater, spectacle, and the book itself as a visual artifact. Some of us study the representation of literary texts within visual art and/or the converse, the representation of visual art within literary texts. Some of us examine the dynamics of text/image configurations. Some of us are interested in studying the political, religious, or social function of images. At the heart of much of this research lies an interest in the nature of visuality as a social and perceptual phenomenon and as a basis for knowledge.

Faculty

• Florence Boos
• Matthew Brown
• Corey Creekmur
• Huston Diehl
• Mary Lou Emery
• Eric Gidal
• Cheryl Herr
• Garrett Stewart
• Miriam Thaggert

Courses

Matt Brown:

• Literature and the Book: Visual and Verbal Literacies in Twentieth-Century American Culture

Huston Diehl:

• Renaissance Image and Reformation Iconoclasm

Mary Lou Emery:

• Virginia Woolf and Bloomsbury
• Caribbean Crosscurrents of the 20th Century

Eric Gidal:

• Literature and Art: The Image and the Word
• Society of the Spectacle: Visual and Verbal Culture of Eighteenth-Century England

Cheryl Herr:

• British Film History
• Thatcherism and Film; Contemporary British Art Exhibits
• Rock and Film
• Representing the Troubles in Irish Film.

Garrett Stewart:

• Narrative in Fiction and Film