WHO ARE WE?
Founded in 2002, the Center for Visual Cultures at the University of Wisconsin-Madison supports curricular innovation and interdisciplinary collaboration from faculty and students in the emerging field of visual cultures. We sponsor a yearlong speaker series on topics of general and critical interest and invite members of the community and the university to meet speakers and participate in events and workshops. For students, we offer a Ph.D. Minor and a Graduate Certificate in Visual Cultures. Join us in exploring the multiple visual cultures around us and around the world.
WHY STUDY VISUAL CULTURES?
Students need the skills in visual literacy and criticality that we teach, if they are to participate and succeed in the rapidly expanding field of Visual Cultures. What we mean by this is that, while the study of visual cultures is an interdisciplinary field in its own right, its rise as a field stems from the fact that we live in an image-dominated world. As a growing consequence, a demonstrated capacity to analyze and critically and creatively intervene in that visual world becomes increasingly an aspect of professional demand for students pursuing degrees in a wide range of traditional disciplines from Anthropology to History. Thus, there are two primary reasons to pursue the Ph.D. Minor and its associated Graduate Certificate that we take into consideration. First, training in visual literacy and criticality enhances qualifications, and thus job prospects, for students across disciplines. Second, students across a range of disciplines pursue research for their home degrees (i.e., theses, M.F.A. exhibitions, dissertations) that requires skill in visual analysis training for which is not provided by their primary host degree program. The rigorous course work for the Ph.D. Minor and the Graduate Certificate ensures that students who complete the program have a solid understanding of critical methods, field training, and theories in visual cultures. The strength of the program is demonstrated by the professional success of its graduates.
MORE ABOUT THE VISUAL CULTURES COMMUNITY ON CAMPUS
Over the years, the Center has been fortunate to host artists and scholars from around the world. Their visits have contributed significantly to the creative, academic atmosphere that we strive to foster on campus. The study of transdisciplinary and critical work with the visual is radically dispersed across not just departments within the College of Letters and Science but also across schools and colleges. From its inception and largely for this reason of atomized dispersal, the Center and its degree program have offered a way to create the kind of robust intellectual community necessary for advanced research and professional training (including re-training). The lectures, exhibitions, and workshops that we host enable all students with interests in Visual Cultures to tap into a ready-made academic structure with a community of scholars, artists, and activists. Currently, our faculty affiliates and an ever-expanding number of students are based in departments across colleges and schools, ranging from Afro-American Studies, English, Art, Communication Arts, History, Art History, Gender and Women Studies, and Languages (Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, German, French) to Design Studies, Geography, Genetics, Ethnomusicology, and Interdisciplinary Theatre Studies, among others.
MINOR & CERTIFICATE
We offer a Doctoral Minor and a Graduate Certificate for masters and professional students. Students enrolled in a terminal M.A. or M.F.A. program are eligible for a Graduate Certificate whereas Ph.D. students are eligible for a Doctoral Minor.
The Doctoral Minor and the Graduate Certificate in Visual Cultures are intended for students from across the University who desire training in the interdisciplinary study of visual cultures. The field of visual cultures analyzes the social construction of images as well as their impact in our social world. Visual Culture Studies differs from other related disciplines in two ways: first, its field of inquiry includes an expansive array of visual cultural artifacts and practices; and, second, its methodologies focus on the constitution of power relations through visual markers of race, gender, disability, and nationality. As the world continues to become increasingly understood through, and reliant on, the visual (the internet, films, television, scientific graphs, data visualization, video games, and advertisements), the need for people trained with the ability to critically interpret, create, and evaluate those mediums is essential.
DIVERSITY, EQUITY, AND INCLUSION STATEMENT
The Center for Visual Cultures thrives in its diverse and inclusive community in which individuals of any gender, race, ethnicity, caste, ability, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, cultural upbringing, language variety, and socioeconomic standing may flourish. Diversity, equity and inclusion are central to our core identity, our founding mission, and how we design our lecture lineup and academic program. We welcome diverse perspectives, especially of those who are marginalized or vulnerable members of society.
2024-2025 VISITING ARTIST JEN RAE
We are thrilled to announce that Dr. Jen Rae will be joining the Center for Visual Cultures as a guest for the entire year. The Center will be collaborating with the Art Department and the Division of Arts to host events featuring Dr. Rae. Dr Rae will be teaching the course “Art 469: Art, Climate and Disasters” in the fall. Please stay tuned for more details about the course and events at cvc.wisc.edu.
FACULTY SPOTLIGHT
Congratulation! Professor Darshana Mini’s book Rated A: Soft-Porn Cinema and Mediations of Desire in India won the The Edward Cameron Dimock, Jr. Prize in the Indian Humanities awarded by the American Institute of Indian Studies!
2024-2025
ANNUAL THEME:
“Abolition“
For the academic year 2024-2025, the Center for Visual Cultures’ year-long public series will focus on the theme of “Abolition.” Abolition is a contemporary transcultural effort to combat different instances of discrimination, injustice and stigma. Our program visualizes an end to all systems of oppression, including the violent maintenance of the gender binary. The past few years have shown us that neoliberal visions of a post-race society are (as they have always been) a myth. As we reel under new (but also continuing) crises—the demonization of critical race theory, animosity towards diversity frameworks, attacks on bodily autonomy from reproductive rights to trans and queer agency—how may we consider abolition today? The work of the arts and humanities in this scenario is clear and urgent: racial discrimination, gender inequities, class divides have not only not disappeared, they are also being exacerbated by global north/global south divides, new, virulent forms of right-wing populism, climate injustice, and the marketing of violent governmentalities from the “first” to other worlds.
CVC PROGRAMMING SPRING 2025
Danielle Roper
LECTURE
Revenge Fantasies: Black Rage and Racial Reckoning in Black Caribbean Art
Thursday, February 6, 2025
WORKSHOP
Performing Monuments: Brewing and the Politics of Racial Reckoning
Friday, February 7, 2025
David Pullins
LECTURE
Juan de Pareja, Afro-Hispanic Painter in the Age of Velázquez
Thursday, February 20, 2025
WORKSHOP
Writing the Many Lives of Juan de Pareja
Friday, February 21, 2025
Eric Stanley
LECTURE
Become Ungovernable: Trans Life Against the State
Thursday, March 6, 2025
WORKSHOP
Enemies and Friends: Abolition, Anti-imperialism, Anarchism
Friday, March 7, 2025
Priya Jaikumar
LECTURE
Electron, Electric, Electronic: Countering the Invisibilities of Electricity
Thursday, March 20, 2025
WORKSHOP
What’s Your Analytic?
Friday, March 21, 2025
Abolition Symposium
Che Gossett
Jennifer Gonzalez
Kimberly Juanita Brown
April 11 & 12
Pyle Center Vandeberg Aud. 121
9 am - 9 pm