Visual Cultures is the first study of the place of visuality and literacy in specific nations around the world, featuring authoritative, insightful essays on the value accorded to the visual and the verbal in Japan, Poland, China, Russia, Ireland, and Slovenia.

Focusing on the national instead of the global, distinguished art critic James Elkins offers a critique of general histories of visuality, such as those of Martin Jay or Jean Baudrillard, as well as a critique of local histories of visuality, as in Third Text and other postcolonial studies. The content is not only analytic, but also historical, tracing changes in the significance of visual and verbal literacy in each nation. Visual Cultures also explores questions of national identity and the many issues Elkins raises suggest a wealth of promising avenues for future research.

Introduction

 

Slovenia: Visuality and Literarity In Slovene Culture

Andrej Smrekar

Japan: Lost In Translation, or Nothing To See but Everything

Sunil Manghani

Ireland: Words Upon the Windowpane: Image, Text, and Irish Culture

Luke Gibbons

Poland: A Visually-Oriented Literary Culture?

Kris Van Heuckelom

China: Verbal Above Visual: A Chinese Perspective

Ding Ning

Russia: To Read, To Look: Teaching Visual Studies In Moscow

Viktoria Musvik

Critical Response

Ester Sánchez-Pardo

Contributors