Georgetown University School of Continuing Studies

Master of Arts in Liberal Studies

Visual Culture

Curriculum Description
The field of Visual Culture is premised upon a commitment to art as visual evidence critical to the study of cultural history and the formation of cultural values. Not simply aesthetic expression, art is a shaper and a mirror of culture. Students are engaged in the study of the visual transmission of modes of social behavior, and of religious and political values. The interdisciplinary and cross-cultural nature of the Liberal Studies degree emphasizes the ways in which works of art shape and reflect changes in cultural attitudes toward religion, government, gender, and society while also recognizing the historicity of both specific works of art and artists.

Faculty Advisor

Diane Apostolos-Cappadona, Ph.D., The George Washington University; Adjunct Professor of Religious Art and Cultural History in the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, Georgetown University. Her research interests include the relationship between image and word; the relationship between icon and relic; the question of iconoclasm and iconophobia in world religions; and the relationship between religion, art, and gender. apostold@georgetown.edu

Degree Requirements
In order to earn a Master's degree in the Visual Culture curricular field, students must complete six courses in this field including one Core course and one Human Values course or two Core courses, three Visual Culture Topical courses, and one Visual Culture curricular field elective. No course may be counted twice to satisfy the Core, Human Values or the three Topical course requirements. To complete the total number of credits required for the MALS degree, 30 credits, three elective courses may be selected from any Liberal Studies courses or up to two courses at the University appropriate to this degree with the approval of the Program Director. The selected curricular field will appear on the final transcript of record.

Given the proximity of Georgetown University to many of the nation's leading art galleries, museums, and repositories for cinematic and photographic history, students choosing the curricular field of Visual Culture are urged to visit these collections, attend the tours and special lectures, and coordinate research topics. Additionally, students may participate in no more than one appropriate study tour, such as those offered in Italy and other sites through the Office of International Programs. A study tour counts as a general program elective course only, not as a curricular field elective or Topical course.

Curricular Field
Click here for the current pamphlet describing the requirements for this field and the listing of its courses and faculty advisor.  The following courses are a sampling of recent course offerings in this field.

Curricular Field Core:

Art and Ethics: Current Controversies in the Liberal Arts
Art, Creativity, and Gender
Art, Creativity, and the Sacred
Art, Culture, and Values
The Artist in the Community

Curricular Field Elective:

American Art
Artist As Genius
Artists as Rebels and Martyrs
Artists as Revolutionaries
Buddhism through Literature and Art
Medieval Cathedrals,Gothic Architecture and Catholic Imagination

Curricular Field Human Values:

Adam and Eve in Theology and Image
Art and Terrorism
Cinema and American Values
Classic and Romantic: Styles and Values in Western Culture
Fragmentation and Reintegration
Images of Eve, Mary, and Fatima
The Medieval Synthesis: Art and Religion in the Middle Ages
The Myth of the Hero
Visual Culture and Terrorism
War, Peace, and Violence in the Visual Culture of the West

Courses:

MALS Thesis Proposal Workshop

Information Session and Reception

March 22, 2012 NATIONAL PRESS CLUB 6:00 p.m. Details

Master of Arts in Liberal Studies News and Highlights