Graduate Program in Visual and Cultural Studies

The Graduate Program in Visual and Cultural Studies was established in 1988 and gained New York State approval in 1991. It was developed as a collaboration across departments and disciplines with a focus on the critical and social-historical analysis of visual objects broadly defined. Through interdisciplinary coursework and individual research, students develop critical skills for the analysis of visual images, ranging from more traditional art historical approaches (including formalist and social-art historical approaches) to those developed by literary and film studies (semiotics, psychoanalytic criticism, narratology), and other historical approaches (including those using digital tools and ethnographic methods), which can produce a wider perspective in the study of visual culture. Central to this work is feminist, queer, postcolonial, and critical race theories.