Image theories and visual history

The course aims to provide students with a critical perspective on images (and artworks in particular) as essential tools for the analysis of historical events and contexts. Even before the advent of photographic media, images have been often regarded as visible evidence, that is, as reliable ways of capturing the real, just like written documents and testimonies. At the same time, images contribute to shaping cultural identities on an international, national and local scale, thus informing and conditioning our historical interpretation. Combining aesthetics, visual culture and memory studies, the course focuses on material culture and the relationship between human beings and iconic artefacts, addressing questions like: How do images contribute to the practices of historiography, the preservation of cultural heritage, and the construction/destruction of public and shared memory? In which ways do they trigger both personal and social narratives? How do individuals, groups, and societies deal with their past through images (by remembering, forgetting, or neglecting it), and how do they imagine their future? Historical space, along with historical time, will also be given due consideration, with particular regard to the image of the city and visualisations of urban space as an environment playing a fundamental role in the construction of collective memory, reflecting the process of inscription of memory and the multi-layered identities that inhabit them.

Through both a theoretical approach and the presentation of case studies, this course will enable the participants to become aware of the power of images in enriching our knowledge of the past and present and in constructing cultural identities. Students will become familiar with the uses of images as historical evidence, discussing their double-edged capacity of giving the viewer a sense of witnessing events. They will be able to understand the fundamental questions related to memory, remembrance, and commemoration in relation to images. In particular, they will be able to critically reflect upon how politics, ideologies and the visual arts influence each other, with particular reference to monuments and public art. They will also gain expertise in articulating the significance of images as sites of negotiation and sedimentation of historical facts, social and cultural identities, and shared historical memories. The skills acquired could be employed in the analysis of historical visual data, as well as to collaborate with archives, libraries, and cultural institutions, and with organizations and professional communities dedicated to preserving and promoting cultural heritage.