A. J. CASCARDI
Brief Description
These meetings will concentrate
on the rhetoric of the image in three vastly different historical moments: Classical Antiquity; the early modern age;
and the contemporary moment. With
reference to Classical Antiquity, we will concentrate on presuppositions and
misconceptions regarding the relationship between image and truth; in the Early
Modern Age we will focus on the establishment of a regime of the image through
the rhetoric of perspective; and in the contemporary moment we will concentrate
on the spectacle as one example of the image within mass culture. (An optional fourth set of readings on “Image
and Text” is suggested for students who wish independently to explore those
issues.)
Students are expected to have
read all the materials indicated prior to each meeting. Sessions will include a lecture/overview of
the texts, an introduction to the salient points, comments on the linkages
between texts and topics. We will then
proceed to a seminar-style discussion and commentary of the texts. Finally, students will be asked to present
their research topics and papers. Each seminar presentation lasts 30 min. or more
and is to be directly related to the topic of the seminar paper. Papers can be on any topic that fits into their
program related to the lectures. Visual material is welcome. Students will be asked to submit papers on
line or via email that the student will email you in the month following the
lectures..
Outline of Lectures and and
I. Image and Iconoclasm
W J T Mitchell, “What is an
Image?” from Iconology (pdf)
Plato, Sophist (pdf)
Stanley Rosen, from Plato’s
Sophist, ch. 7, 10 (pdf)
II. The Age of the World as Picture
L-B Alberti, On Painting
(book)
Heidegger “The Age of the
World View” (pdf)
Norman Bryson, Vision and
Painting
Karsten Harries, from Infinity
and Perspective (pdf)
III. Image, Ideology, and
Spectacle
W J T Mitchell, “Image and
Ideology” from Iconology (pdf)
Walter Benjamin, “The Work of
Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” (pdf)
Jean-Louis Baudry, “The
Apparatus” (pdf)
Guy Debord, The Society of
the Spectacle
Recommended: Guy Debord, Comments on the Society of the
Spectacle
IV. (Optional) Image and Text
Lessing, Laocoön
Roland Barthes, Camera
Lucida
W.J.T. Mitchell, “Space and
Time” from Iconology