“The course helped students understand what visual literacy and culture mean, and enabled them to interpret the visual for purposes of understanding their own culture, religion, family dynamics and sense of power,” explained Doris Jones, course instructor. “By examining collections that represent historical periods throughout the world, students understood that images can transcend space because as much as they represent the past, they also represent the present.”

The curriculum of the course tackled cultural, postcolonial thought and autobiographical narratives, connecting them with visuals. Students examined images from the Underwood Stereoviews Collection, which were taken during the height of the British colonial occupation of Egypt. “The collection, which contains more than 3,000 images representing culture in Egypt, North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa in the late 19th century and early 20th century, has as its framework a postcolonial viewpoint,” explained Jones. “So the images may not necessarily represent the sense of national identity that many Egyptians would see for themselves today.”

To enhance students’ learning experience, Jones established collaborations with educational institutions abroad. Student had the opportunity to utilize the image databases developed by the visual rhetoric program in the University of Texas at Austin. “The program has more than 30 databases with common license agreements, which allowed students to utilize images for educational purposes, such as integrating them into their papers, as long as they acknowledge the source,” said Jones.

For the students, the course taught them to look beyond the basics. “The course was both interesting and innovative,” said Mostafa Mahmoud, a petroleum engineering senior who wrote his final research paper on the graffiti art in post-revolution Egypt. Using the skills acquired through the course, he was able to analyze the political, economic and social undertones of street art, as well as its visual influence. “My understanding of visual literacy and culture increased a lot. Now I pay attention to the tiny details of an image, and I can analyze the background behind visuals.” 

Interdisciplinary in nature, the course brought together students from different majors, including the hard sciences. “My major is very practical, but I enjoyed the analytical writing and research included in this course,” said Mohab Osama, an electronics engineering senior who wrote his final research paper on material consumerism, and how advertisements and other visuals encourage people to acquire more material acquisitions. “The course also enhanced my ability to think critically and to analyze the hidden messages behind images.”

In addition, students had the opportunity to use Mediathread, an open-source software that enables exploration, analysis and organization of Web-based multimedia content. “The course immersed students in a new online platform developed by the Columbia Center for New Media Teaching and Learning (CCNMTL),” said Jones. “The software allowed students to integrate images and place visuals next to their written text, where they could develop arguments and write research papers.” The executive director of CCNMTL, Frank Moretti, arranged for a team to collaborate with AUC’s University Academic Computing Technologies to make this software available to AUC faculty members and students.

“It was my first time to use the Mediathread software, but I found it very helpful,” said Mahmoud. “It enabled us to embed images in our text, tag and annotate pictures, and focus on certain details in visuals.”

Besides giving students a primary research experience, course work involved reading two theoretical perspectives about visual culture: Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright’s book Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture, and Susan Sontag's book On Photography. These two books served as the foundational framework of the course. “Exposing students to both primary source materials and theoretical perspectives allowed them to develop a variety of argumentative interpretations,” said Jones, adding that one of the main course objectives was to help students realize that understanding and interpreting a cross-cultural range of visuals involves more than just analyzing the simple, aesthetic components of the picture.

“Visual rhetoric is interdisciplinary because it is political, cultural, religious, historical and artistic, and can also bring with it biographical components,” explained Jones. “Students need to see that image interpretation also depends on their cultural perspectives, the knowledge they bring to the experience of the visual, and how they apply that knowledge to their interpretation.”     

Photo courtesy of the Rare Books and Special Collections Library and Archives.