In our media saturated culture, how to read and interpret words and images (together and apart) is an increasingly important skill. Words and images not neutral or benign; they tell us much about the social relations, power and privilege, and taken for granted attitudes of the society within which they circulate. Words and images circulate through a variety of media to make meaning: books, film, advertising, social media of all kinds, YouTube...even bodies and our self-presentations are ways in which we make and communicate meaning. This cluster of courses is ideal for students interested in questions such as: how do images and words construct meaning across a range of media? How are they read and interpreted by different groups of people--and why and how are the differences in responses important? What kinds of meanings do people make of words and images as they circulate? Can people remake them to mean something different—and why and how do they do that?

Suggested Courses:

• DSJS 3110 (ANTH 3100; ENG 3140): Identity and Popular Culture
• DSJS 1090: Selected Topics - Unruly Bodies
• THST 2440 (ENG 2440): Introduction to Theatre Studies
• ENG 2220: Reading Film
• ENG 3790: [The Graphic Novel Course]
• ANTH 4560 (DSJS 4560): Visual Culture
• POLS 3090: Selected Topics: Politics of Media, Spin, Manipulation
• ENG 4040: Writing and Rhetoric in Context
• FR 3390 - Théâtre canadien-français
• FR 4320 - Littérature et cinéma
• SPAN 2090 - Latin American Film and Society