Conference marks program’s anniversary

Rochester’s Visual and Cultural Studies program celebrates
20th year

By Valerie Alhart

valerie.alhart@rochester.edu

In 1989, Rochester became the first academic institution in the country to provide students with the opportunity to analyze visual culture from a social-historical perspective and investigate the connections between culture, critical theory, and society.

Twenty years after the start of the Visual and Cultural Studies (VCS) program, University faculty, staff, students, and alumni will recognize this milestone with a two-day conference, “Visual and Cultural Studies: The Next 20 Years.” The conference will examine the past, present, and future status of the field by drawing experts from around the globe to discuss how the area of study enhances teaching and research and what direction it is headed in next. Several of the speakers are graduates of Rochester’s program.

“This anniversary is significant because VCS transforms all disciplines it intersects with. It provides a platform for shared ideas and overlapping interests in art, culture, modern languages, and anthropology,” says Joan Saab, the program’s director.

The event, Saab adds, will also demonstrate that the University’s graduate program remains the predominant program in the area of visual and cultural studies. The conference begins Thursday, October 1, in the Hawkins-Carlson Room of the Rush Rhees Library, and it kicks off the start of a year-long series of talks, workshops, and a symposium on the topic “New Ways of Seeing: New Media and the Humanities, Theory, and Practice.”

To learn more or to register for the conference, visit www.rochester.edu/college/aah/VCS/conference/registration.htm.