Course Description

Credit will not be given for both this course and 01:082:118.

Course Description

We start from the present and move to the past, thereby enriching our understanding of the present and the future. We do so with our eyes, literally “seeing” the world in the present and then in its past by viewing and analyzing visual media and physical objects from today and then from yesterday. We take as our starting point the primary role of the visual in both our daily lives and in the way we remember the past. The rise in digital technology and social media has meant that much of the information we receive is transmitted visually. Traces of the daily lives of people in the past are preserved through visual artifacts; world events that we read or hear about are remembered through pictures; photographs often serve as memories of our own lived experiences. Through a focus on the visual, this course demonstrates that images provide unique access to experiences of those distant to us in time and place. At the same time, it shows that how we see is a factor of who we are and, in turn, that images often determine how events are experienced and remembered.