LFU:online

(1) Raising awareness of ideologized imagery and its impact on the human perception of gender, body, culture, society, etc.

(2) Teaching of scientifically substantiated, practically orientated and historically comparative knowledge about the epistemic content of images and visual information

(3) Facilitation of the professional handling with visual matter in work practice - of historic picture sources, media of arts to digital world of images, fine arts and culture

(4) Promotion of the sense of responsibility and the ethical framework in working with images

(5) Realization of intersubjective and intercultural factors, which influence the use, reception and impact of image(

(1) Introduction to visual perception (e.g. psychophysics, optical illusion) and visual sense (visual acuity, colour vision, spacial vision etc.)

(2) The Fe/male Gaze

Reference to Laura Mulvey's approach of Male Gaze and exemplary analysis of Hollywood movies of the 20th century

Reference to Jill Soloway's approach of female gaze and exploring ways of visualizing gender in 21st century mass media pop culture

(3) The Post/colonial Gaze

Confrontation with ethnographic photography and discussion of the visual construction (with focus on infantilization and trivialization) of the colonized and the discussion of the "Othering" in order to shape and establish the colonial's identity as being the powerful conqueror

(4) The Political /Ideological Gaze

Exemplary analysis of war photographs of the Iraq wars (1st and 2nd Iraq War) as well as the images of Abu Ghraib in the context of embedded journalism with reference to Judith Butler and Susan Sontag

Examination of propaganda photography in National Socialism (photography in the Nazi Regime)

(5) The Clinical Gaze

Historical reference to Jean-Martin Charcot's photography of hysteria as well as Michel Foucault's work on the clinical and panoptic gaze

Discussion of the socio-medial construction of disability (in reference to the photo archive of the Liebenau Foundation)

(6) The Humanistic/Empathic Gaze

Critical examination of Edward Steichen's exhibition "The Family of Man" and its artistic reinterpretations

Analysis of images from the World Press Award

Discussion on how a humanistic gaze could look like

Introductory talks given by the lecturer, sample exercises, plenary discussion.

written assignment

 Rimmele, M., Sachs-Hombach, K. & Stiegler, B. (Hg.). Bildwissenschaft und Visual Culture. Bielefeld: transcript.

Mirzoeff, N. (2016). How to see the world. New York: Penguin Books.

Berger, J. (2009). About Looking. London: Bloomsbury.