This course will examine histories and theories of vision, visual perception, and visual representation. While seeing can be understood as a physiological operation that involves various elements of the visual system, seeing is also a social and cultural phenomenon that is shaped by time, place, and circumstance. We will read, think, talk, and write about how we see, what we can and cannot see, and how we see, from the perspective of both perception and representation. Our readings will include the work of historians, theorists, and critics, and we will look at a broad range of objects and issues within visual culture such as representations of blindness, philosophical explorations of perception, critiques of surveillance, and the power of the gaze.

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