Undergraduate Studies
Text/Image course offerings are key to undergraduate learning at Glasgow, from Level 1 French Popular Culture Lectures and Seminars, that include specific study of emblems and bande dessinée, to units in Theology, English Literature,History of Art and Comparative Literature.
Text/Image Cultures: Theory and Practice
Drawing on a number of theoretical perspectives and on materials from a variety of cultures, genres and time periods, this course explores the relationship between verbal and visual modes of representation in media which combine both of these. It is focussed on the interpretive questions which arise when we find ourselves both reading images and looking at words: in advertisements, medieval manuscripts, posters, caricature, and illustrated texts (see full course description for more information on this course).
The European Emblem
The Word/image genre of the Emblem flourished throughout Europe in the 16th and 17thcenturies, and the University of Glasgow is lucky enough to have the world's finest collection. During the course, students will examine a selection of texts illustrating the way in which the emblematic mentality was harnessed to serve different didactic purposes from political propaganda to religious polemic (see full course description for more information on this course).
Writing the Visual: The Art of the Text
This course looks at the relationship between paintings and words, engaging with the concept of ekphrasis as well as analysing the presence of words in paintings. It asks how we might "write" the visual and, more broadly speaking, account for the 'pictorial turn' in today's culture. In so doing, it offers a fresh and innovative take on text-image relations in French, Belgian and Swiss contexts (see full course description for more information on this course).
Golden Age Iberia in Glasgow
'Golden Age Iberia in Glasgow' explores the unprecedented flowering of artistic and cultural production in Spain and Portugal during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, with particular attention to Glasgow's unique resources in this field. Delivered in collaboration with curators and researchers in the area, the course includes "walking seminars" around Pollok House and classes delivered within Special Collections at Glasgow University Library, a combined in situ approach which will facilitate students exploration of the relationship between word and image in Golden Age Iberia (see full course description for more information on this course).