‘I hate visual culture.’ The controversial rise of visual studies and the disciplinary politics of the visible

Bibliographic Data

ID19003959
AuthorsMaxime Boidy (corresponding author), J Patarin-Jossec (0000-0001-8914-7567), Susan Hansen (0000-0002-5530-7056)
Year2020
Volume35
Issue4
Pages310-318
Publication date2020-08-07
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueVisual Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1472-586X • E-ISSN: 1472-5878
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/1472586x.2020.1850063
OpenAlexW3117359034
LanguageEN
Citations received5
References cited19

The rise of Visual Studies in the American academy during the 1990s is part of an after-effect of the institutionalisation of Cultural Studies in the United States. It specifically implies a decentring of the discipline of art history towards the interdisciplinary study of sociocultural visibilities. This paper deals with the development of this research field in an intellectual climate still characterised by the ‘Culture Wars’ engaged in by the neoconservatives against certain areas of the academy and the artistic world during the 1980s. By taking into account the struggles about Visual Studies inside the intellectual Left as an integral part of their definition, this paper analyses the academic politicisations of the notions of ‘Visual Culture’ (culture visuelle) and ‘Visual Studies’ (études visuelles) in the context of the current French importation and redefinition of these categories

Aesthetics · Art · Discipline · Institutionalisation · Media studies · Political science · Politics · Social science · Sociocultural evolution · Sociology · Visual culture · Anthropology · Cultural Identity and Heritage · Cultural Studies · History · Law · Photography and Visual Culture · Visual Culture and Art Theory

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