Landscape and Visual Culture

This subject is not offered in 2008.

For the purposes of considering request for Reasonable Adjustments under the Disability Standards for Education (Cwth 2005), and Student Support and Engagement Policy, academic requirements for this subject are articulated in the Subject Overview, Learning Outcomes, Assessment and Generic Skills sections of this entry.

It is University policy to take all reasonable steps to minimise the impact of disability upon academic study, and reasonable adjustments will be made to enhance a student's participation in the University's programs. Students who feel their disability may impact on meeting the requirements of this subject are encouraged to discuss this matter with a Faculty Student Adviser and Student Equity and Disability Support: http://services.unimelb.edu.au/disability

This subject is concerned with the relationship between geography and visual culture, as it is expressed through the concept of landscape. Geography has been, and continues to be, a quintessentially visual enterprise reliant on practices of envisioning people and place. This subject introduces students to the meaning, power and politics of those visual practices from nineteenth century photography of Africa and Australia to contemporary digital culture. Drawing on ideas from art history, anthropology and cultural studies, the subject will discuss the evolving landscape tradition in oil painting, photography and contemporary art. Students who complete this subject will be familiar with current work in cultural geography that presents 'landscape' as more than an image, but as a critical concept that reveals the relations between processes and things. Particular attention will be paid to the fundamental question of what it means to see, and the connection between sight and other senses. Students will be introduced to these themes through various geographical contexts and through constant reference to a range of visual media, particularly photography and film.

Information Not Available

This subject is not available as a breadth subject.

• have an ability to discuss the contested and provisional nature of knowledge;

• have an ability to read and write contemporary theory in cultural geography;

• have an ability to think critically about the relation between sight and knowledge.