War and Visual Culture and Surveillance

Overview

This module will examine the different ways that war is represented, mediated, normalised and weaponised in wider visual culture. It will examine specific examples of how war is represented in visual culture (e.g. photography, film) and mediated through mass media and social media platforms. It will consider how visual technologies enable surveillance in ways that reconcile us to permanent warmaking, and how those technologies are used to execute warfare at home and abroad (e.g. drones). It will draw on interdisciplinary research in Visual Culture, International Relations, Surveillance Studies, Cultural Studies and War Studies, and ask students to reflect on their own assumptions about, and engagements with, how war, visual culture and surveillance intersect. All aspects of the module will engage with conceptual frameworks for the study of war, visual culture and surveillance, as well as historical and contemporary examples.

Learning Objectives

Students should be able to explain the complex relationship between war, visual culture and surveillance, including a variety of conceptual approaches, and understand relevant interdisciplinary debates that inform how we interpret, create meaning and make interventions on the basis of dominant understandings of war and conflict. Students should be able to explain the political importance of (a) war representations through theoretical concepts such as semiotics, ideology and discourse; (b) war mediations through news values, viewer dispositions and citizen journalism; (c) the normalization of war through practices of surveillance using concepts such as the complexes of visuality, scopic regimes and the panopticon; and (d) the weaponization of visual technologies through increased automation, drones and AI. Throughout their explorations, students will pay particular attention to the way war, visual culture and surveillance reproduce pre-existing logics of power such as nationalism, race, gender, class and colonialism. Students should be able to reflect on their own engagements with, and experiences of, the visual cultures of war and identify different political positions from which to interpret, debate and intervene in these cultures.

Skills

Students will be given the opportunity to communicate their ideas in a clear and concise manner, both orally and in written work. Tutorial sessions will allow them to develop their oral communication skills (debating, public speaking, presentations) whilst working in teams and completing set tasks. The written assignments will enhance student skills such as time management, prioritizing knowledge, managing information, and producing analytical, critical and creative arguments. Because the students will be asked to address their own interpretations and experiences of of visual culture, the module also enhances the general skills of self-reflexivity, independent learning and critical thinking.

Assessment

None