Visual Global Politics POLITIC4174

  • Academic Session: 2023-24
  • School: School of Social and Political Sciences
  • Credits: 20
  • Level: Level 4 (SCQF level 10)
  • Typically Offered: Either Semester 1 or Semester 2
  • Available to Visiting Students: Yes

Short Description

This course interrogates the intersection of the visual, the global, and the political. Students will build on critical and post-structuralist cultural, political and IR theory in order to understand why visuality matters for the study of international relations, and apply these ideas to a range of empirical sites.

Timetable

This course may not be running this year. For further information please check the Politics and IR Moodle page or contact the subject directly.

Requirements of Entry

Standard entry requirements to Honours Politics or International Relations.

Excluded Courses

None.

Co-requisites

None.

Assessment

Essay, 2500 words (50%)

Portfolio of images/short film accompanied by essay, 1000 words (50%

Are reassessment opportunities available for all summative assessments? Not applicable for Honours courses

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Course Aims

The aim of this course is to enable students to develop a theoretical and methodological toolkit with which to explore the complex and dynamic intersection between the visual, the global, and the political. Students will study a range of sites, ranging from early modern cartography and its role in state- and empire-building to the contemporary built environment of Glasgow. Questions that will be asked over the course of the semester include: How are the acts of making, disseminating and viewing images bound up with the exercise of power? How do images act or work in the world, and how might we understand their influence and impact? What forces determine who or what is seen, and who or what is hidden from view? Why does this matter? And how might an attentiveness to the politics of visuality shape scholarly research?

Intended Learning Outcomes of Course

By the end of this course, students will be able to:

■ Demonstrate familiarity with some of the theoretical and methodological approaches underpinning the study of visual global politics;

■ Apply these approaches to a range of empirical sites where visual media play an active or productive political role;

■ Critically assess the politics at play in the production, circulation and consumption of visual objects;

■ Explain and justify ideas about the above themes in class discussion and written assessment.

Minimum Requirement for Award of Credits

Students must submit at least 75% by weight of the components (including examinations) of the course's summative assessment.