Social Science Research Council

SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH COUNCIL
DISSERTATION PROPOSAL DEVELOPMENT FELLOWSHIP

VISUAL CULTURE
SPRING 2007 WORKSHOP AGENDA

Research Director: Anne Higonnet
Research Director: Vanessa Schwartz

Radisson Hotel Denver Stapleton Plaza
Thursday, May 17 – Sunday, May 20, 2007

This is the first of two workshops designed to help students prepare cogent and fundable dissertation proposals in their chosen field.  The two goals of the first workshop are 1) to map the research field with respect to contributing disciplines, methods, sources, and area knowledge; and 2) to help prepare fellows for their pre-dissertation summer research.  (The goal of the second workshop will be to focus on the mechanics and methods of writing a dissertation proposal).  The two goals stand in close relation to each other: through a sustained and structured discussion of student proposals and their component parts, we hope to contribute to the mapping of the research field itself. 

Visual culture can be defined by its objects of study, which are examined not for their aesthetic value per se but for their modes of image-making and for the manner in which they define visual experience in particular historical contexts.  Visual culture has a particular investment in vision as a historically specific experience, mediated by new technologies and the individual and social formations they enable.  Moreover, visual culture identifies and underscores the status of the visual as a sensory experience that is itself conditioned by a historical understanding of physiology, optics, and cognitive science. Students in this workshop have been selected because of the quality of the research questions they have posed. This field demands that students master problems and frame them in ways that at once addresses disciplinary historiography while also extending beyond their home discipline as well. This workshop will create common intellectual ground in Visual Studies while respecting disciplinary expertise.

Workshop Readings and Resources:
Research Field resources have been placed on the secure DPDF web portal. 

Workshop Assignments

During the workshops, participants will be asked to do the following:
1) Discuss common readings which must be completed before arrival and will be posted on the secure DPDF web portal by May 2.
2) Post your original proposal’s longest narrative section and read all the participant proposals.
3) Each student will be paired with another student.
4) Choose one piece of writing that has been most influential to your proposal, explain why in five minutes in one of the workshop sessions. The reading or a reference to it needs to be posted to the secure DPDF web portal by May 10th.
5) Present one object, film, event or institution in ten minutes. Special attention will be paid to visual presentation. Students must post choice of object on the secure DPDF web portal by May 10th.

VISUAL CULTURE: WORKSHOP SCHEDULE 

Session 1: Introduction and Purpose of Workshops
(Thursday, 9 AM – 12:30 PM)

Plenary Session: Presentations by Program Director Peter Sahlins and the Research Directors

Session 2:  Mapping Fields, Asking Questions
(Thursday, 1:30 PM – 5 PM) 

Introduction of students. Students will introduce themselves by name and field but will actually describe the project of their partner very briefly.

Discussion of disciplinary modes of address; discussion of rhetorical models for the introduction of interdisciplinary projects.

Target Reading:
Bredekamp, “A Neglected Tradition? Art History as Bildwissenschaft” from Critical Inquiry (Spring 2003)
Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproducibility”
Crary, selection from Techniques of the Observer, as anthologized in the Nineteenth Century Visual Culture Reader
Mauss, “Essai sur le Don” or read English translation, Introduction and Conclusion, p. 1-11 and p. 90-106.
Baxandall, Introduction and the chapter on the Forth Bridge from Patterns of Intention, p.1-36.

Session 3: Questions of Method: The Art of Describing: What is the Relation of Question, Object, Method?
(Friday, 9 AM – 12:30 PM)

This session will look at the relationship between what the research question is, what the object under consideration is and what sort of method it entails. In particular, we will suggest that describing is central method for Visual Studies.

OBJECT: Foucault on “Las Meninas” from The Order of Things, 3-16.
INSTITUTION: Schwartz on the Cannes Film Festival.
EVENT: Simon Schama’s “History of Britain” sequence to be screened together.

Session 4: Where do you fit into this field?
(Friday, 1:30 PM – 5 PM)

Task 1: Each student will present the one piece of writing that has most influenced their choice of topic (it does not necessarily have to be directly relevant to their topic). In 5 minutes or fewer, they will explain which central concept of the reading they were influenced by, using that concept to explain the larger significance of the dissertation project.

Session 5:  Practicing Description/Description as Argument and Analysis
(Saturday, 9 AM – 12:30 PM)

Task 2: Each Student presents one object, film, event or institution in 10 minutes followed by group discussion. Special attention will be paid to the techniques of visual presentation and thus a powerpoint presentation is expected.

Session 6: Re-Thinking the Proposal
(Saturday, 12:30 PM – 5 PM)

Task 3: Revised Project Presentations: Each student presents their project proposal, revised in light of the two days of discussion.

Break into pairs for the last hour for greater follow-up on proposals and discussions. Instructors will meet with pairs for 15 minutes each pair.

Session 7:  Summer in the Field (and we don’t mean the corn field).
(Sunday, 9 AM – 12:30 PM) 

 How and where are you going to be finding your “stuff?” This session is devoted to a practical discussion of the regular and irregular sources for work in Visual Studies. Dealing with archivists, collectors, other scholars, senior and junior.

Summer plan of action and goals. How does the discussion continue over the summer and where should you be the first week-end in September?