In this seminar we will discuss methods for researching visual and media cultures. Basing on theories and methods of Visual and Media Anthropology the main questions for this seminar are ‘How to conduct research on visual material and media? And how to analyse and approach visual data in academic writing?’ In the first part we will discuss relevant concepts of visual and media cultures such as the social life and agency of visual objects, the circulation and distribution of popular media and material cultures as well as the discussion on socio-cultural practices of perception, ‘seeing’ and consuming in relation to concrete casestudies. In the light of writing culture debate (James Clifford) and visual material studies we will explore academic practices of collecting, archiving, analysing as well as writing on visual material.
As a relatively new discipline of what is called ‘Digital Humanities’ and to what the Heidelberg Research Architecture (HRA) at the Cluster of Excellence contributes to with a digital research environment for students and scholars (e.g. photo-wiki; HyperImage (image annotation platform), this second part of the seminar focuses also on different ways of ethnographic writing about visual cultures.
This seminar prepares students with a particular interest in visual and media cultures for research-based seminars and projects (e.g. for their MA thesis) and allows them to engage with visual cultures that are part of research fields such as migration and urban studies, youth cultures or visual art studies.
‘Welcome to Research’ Programme (Heidelberg University)
This seminar is part of the University program ‘Willkommen in der Wissenschaft / Welcome to research’. In this programme the chair of Visual and Media Anthropology at HCTS receives support from university for developing new research based teaching formats. Students are asked to actively partake in the improvement and establishment of the research based teaching concepts. The aim is the permanent implementation of online research and presentation environments such as a photo-wiki or the image-annotation tool HyperImage for research based teaching seminars in the Master Program.
Cathrine Bublatzky 