General information
| Course type | AMUPIE |
| Module title | Visual Culture And Semiotics. Selected Issues |
| Language | English |
| Module lecturer | dr Katarzyna Machtyl |
| Lecturer's email | machtylk@amu.edu.pl |
| Lecturer position | |
| Faculty | Faculty of Anthropology and Cultural Studies |
| Semester | 2022/2023 (winter) |
| Duration | 30 |
| ECTS | 4 |
| USOS code | 20-KUDU-MA-VCS |
Timetable
Module aim (aims)
- Achieving knowledge and skills connected with the most important theories in visual semiotics and visual culture studies
- Introducing basic terms, notions, methodologies and different orientations in the field of visual semiotics
- Developing cultural and intercultural competencies; student understands the complexity of various cultural traditions and intercultural relations; is able to analyze, interpret and discuss different visual representations in the view of semiotics
Pre-requisites in terms of knowledge, skills and social competences (where relevant)
A communicative level of English is required.
Syllabus
Week 1: Introductory class
Week 2: Why study semiotics? What semiotics is? What visual culture is?
Week 3: What is visual semiotics? Semiotics and / or art history?
Week 4: Iconic signs – Ch. S. Peirce, Y. Lotman
Week 5: Visual advertisement - semiotic analysis (G. Rose)
Week 6: Visual rhetoric – R. Barthes, U. Eco
Week 7: Globalisation, commercial semiotics and (anti-)consumerism in terms of semiotics
Week 8: Photographic message: R. Barthes
Week 9: Semiotics of cinema: Y. Lotman
Week 10: Semiotics of cinema: Y. Lotman
Week 11: Semiotics of cinema: R. Barthes
Week 12: W.J.T. Mitchell: The pictorial turn – the ‘manifesto’
Week 13: W.J.T. Mitchell: What do pictures want?
Week 14: Students’ presentations
Week 15: Students’ presentations
Reading list
D, Chandler, Semiotics – the basics (online – PDF).
R. Barthes, The Kitchen of Meaning, in: R. Barthes, The Semiotic Challenge, University of California Press, 1994.
W.J.T. Mitchell, Showing seeing: a critique of visual culture, “Journal of Visual Culture” 2002 SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi), Vol 1(2): 165-181.
M. Bal, N. Bryson, Semiotics and Art History, “The Art Bulletin”, Vol. 73, No. 2 (Jun., 1991) (passages).
G. Rose, Semiology: laying bare the prejudices beneath the smooth surface of the beautiful, in: G. Rose, Visual methodologies. An Introduction to the Interpretation of Visual Materials, SAGE Publications.
R. Barthes, The Rhetoric of an Image, in: R. Barthes, Image Music Text, Fontana Press. An Imprint of Harper Collins Publishers.
U. Eco, Towards a Semiological Guerrilla Warfare, 1983, 1976, 1973 by Gruppo Editoriale Fabbri-Bompiani, Sonzogno, Etos S.p.A.; English translation: 1986 by Harcourt, Inc.
R. Barthes, The Photographic Message, in: R. Barthes, Image Music Text, Fontana Press. An Imprint of Harper Collins Publishers 1997.
Y. Lotman, Semiotics of cinema, University of Michigan, cop. 1976 (passages).
R. Barthes, The Third Meaning. Research notes on some Eisenstein stills, in: R. Barthes, Image Music Text, Fontana Press. An Imprint of Harper Collins Publishers 1997.
W.J.T. Mitchell, The Pictorial turn, in: Picture Theory. Essays on Verbal and Visual Representation, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1994.
W.J.T. Mitchell: What do pictures want? The Lives and Loves of Images, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 2005 (passages).