The course examines specific instances of visual political discourse across a range of historic periods, cultural contexts, political positions, and media. In addition to providing students with an overview of the history of visual language of politics, the course aims to develop students’ analytic skills related to critical assessment of visual information. Those are crucial skills for aware citizenship given the saturation of our culture with visual content and the growing importance of visual media for the political process. In addressing these issues we will examine traditional works of art and architecture, popular print culture (in particular political cartoons), and political use of mass media from film to television and internet. Some of the themes we will cover in the course are: symbols and symbolism of political power, imagery of political values, emotional appeal of political messages, political propaganda and fake news, politics of gender, class and race, and visual strategies of political opposition and resistance.

The course is designed to fulfill the Community, Culture and Citizenship in the U.S. (IV-a) requirements of the General Curriculum.