Visual Semiotics

Open to the Art School only.

This course is designed to introduce basic ideas
of structuralism (and some of its discontents) as
they have been applied to the analysis and
criticism of "the visual". After a brief but
thorough explication of both Peircean and
Saussurean semiotic theories, we will follow the
arguments about visual signs and sign making
through a selection of readings from the work of
Irwin Panofsky, Roland Barthes, Julia Kristeva,
Umberto Eco, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault,
Rosalind Krauss, Kaja Silverman and Jeremy
Gilbert-Rolfe, among possible others. Students
will be expected to do all assigned readings,
attend weekly lectures, and participate in
discussions. Credit will be calculated on
attendance and at least one of the following
options: a weekly journal of reading and lecture
notes; a research paper on a topic of semiotic
interest and by permission of the instructor; an
art work (made for the class) presented and
orally defended in a semiotic context to the
class.