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EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION: |
What Does it Mean to “Do” Visual Culture in English? |
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Cynthia Patterson |
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When most scholars, students
and artists hear the words “visual culture,” I doubt that “English
department” is the first academic site readers associate with this term. Yet,
as John A. Walker and Sarah Chaplin point out in their 1997 work Visual
Culture: An Introduction, “visual culture,” as an emerging field of
study, embraces no less than 34 separate academic fields/disciplines, ranging
from aesthetics and art history, to anthropology and cultural studies, to
film studies/theory and psychoanalysis – including “literary criticism,” a
scholarly practice housed, among other places, in English departments.[1] |
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Thus whether one speaks of
visual culture as a broad interdisciplinary field of study or as the object
of that field of study, one must acknowledge the cross-disciplinary methods
of meaning-making likely to be applied to the visual image, in whatever form
it might take. In their introductory text Practices of Looking, Marita
Sturken and Lisa Cartwright use Raymond Williams and Stuart Hall to define
“culture” as “the shared practices of a group, community, or society, through
which meaning is made out of the visual, aural, and textual worlds of
representations.”[2] They offer
as sample “objects” of visual culture studies “paintings, prints,
photographs, films, television, video, advertisements, news images, and
science images.”[3] And, as
Mark Sample, new English department faculty at GMU (interviewed
in this issue) might add, “literary depictions of visual
objects |
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When the Associate Chair,
Devon Hodges, approached me about guest-editing this issue of English
Matters devoted to “visual culture,” I already had a “history” – with the
English department; with English Matters; and with visual culture. I
started teaching for the English department as an adjunct in 1999, while
simultaneously teaching for New Century College here at GMU. While dividing
my time between both departments, I also joined the New Media Group in English,
and contributed to two earlier issues of English Matters – one teaching
module and one digital essay with image archives (see Issue 8: Text and Technology). As a
doctoral candidate in Cultural Studies (I successfully defended my
dissertation April 4, 2005!), my areas of expertise include visual culture
and cultural studies theory and praxis. With two other CS colleagues, Lynne
Constantine and Ellen Gorman, I had just produced the first annual “Visual
Culture Symposium” here at GMU, and my colleagues and I were already planning
the second annual event, scheduled for the spring of 2005. |
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So I had already been thinking
quite a bit about how to “do” visual culture in an English department. My own
recent project examines the role of a group of illustrated monthly magazines,
the “Philly pictorials,” in constructing the boundaries of a new middle class
culture emerging in the mid-nineteenth century, particularly along the
intersecting axes of race, class and gender. In pursuing this project, I had
already become a “collector” of 19th century rare books and bound
periodicals. |
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What continues to fascinate me
is the incredible range of projects that fall under the broad rubric of
“visual culture.” In this issue of English Matters, we feature a
sampling of this kind of intellectual work. |
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The first three essays – by
Krystal Crumpler, Carrie Wright, and Cynthia Fuchs – appeared originally as
symposium papers presented by the authors at our second annual visual culture
symposium held on March 1, 2005, entitled “Gendered Visualties.” Each essay
featured accompanying visual material, and we’re pleased to provide here a
small sampling of the visual images presented with each paper at the
symposium. |
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Krystal Crumpler provides a
piercing reading of the 1997 Lions Gate film entitled Sick – the Life and Death of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist.
The film highlights the efforts of S/M practitioner Bob Flanagan to come to
terms with his long-term illness (and eventual death – of cystic fibrosis)
through S/M. Bob and his S/M partner, Sharee Rose, “star” in the film, and
Crumpler’s reading of the film superimposes the work of author Carol Truscott
in offering “reasons” why people do S/M. Finally, Crumpler concludes,
Flanagan transcends Truscott’s S/M genealogy. |
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Carrie Wright draws upon her
eight years experience dancing nude at a gentleman’s club in Louisville, KY
to understand her new role as an academic in her essay, “Professor Tempest: Exploring Sexualized/Visualized
Identities in the Classroom.” Step by step Wright “strips away” the
elements of her earlier identity, revealing how she continues to mobilize
that identity in her work with students in the composition classroom. |
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Cynthia Fuchs shares with us a
selection from her forthcoming book on Eminem. Her piece, entitled “Whoops, I mean ‘girl’: Eminem, Michael Jackson and
Disrespect,” analyzes Eminem’s public performances of both masculinity
and femininity, arguing that the performer continues to re-create his public
personae in ways that blur his earlier gender stereotyping. |
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And you won’t want to miss the
interview with Mark Sample, newest addition
to the GMU English department faculty. Mark’s work forges new bonds between
literary criticism, the visual image, and the digital archives. Here’s a
young scholar you’ll want to keep your eyes on in the future! |
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And check out Brandon Wicks
annotated links to some fascinating websites where the visual image rules.
With this issue we wish Brandon a fond farewell: he recently completed his
MFA in English at GMU, and is moving on to greener pastures. We’ll miss his
contributions as “tech support extraordinaire” for English Matters
over the past several issues. |
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