New Perspectives for the Study of the Visual Culture of Modernity (I and II)

The course "New Perspectives for the Study of the Visual Culture of Modernity" (I and II) explores new methodological approaches to understanding modernity through the lens of visual studies. Drawing on visual studies, sensory history, and sound studies, it examines how sensory experiences shape cultural practices. The course is divided into two sessions: one focused on the public sphere and the other on the private sphere. In each of them, different objects of the culture of modernity will be dealt with to explain the new changes associated with its use.

The first session will be focused on the mobilisation of the senses in the modern city particularly in department stores and immersive multisensory attractions such as panoramas. Regarding the first topic, I identify practices that, in the context of the 19th century Parisian department stores, engaged the senses to enhance sales. As for immersive attractions, based on the Mareorama presented at the 1900 Universal Exhibition, I argue that the multisensory panorama represents a crucial step in the construction of simulated experiences: it is the moment when the spectator of the expanded picture, represented by the roundabout format, is endowed with corporeality. At this point, their presence begins to be conceived not merely as an abstract gaze, but as a being with a body and sensibility—both of which are essential to the genesis of simulation. Moreover, we will see how these objects fit into the dynamics of obsolescence of capitalism, while simultaneously considering them as precursors to virtual reality.

The second session shifts focus to artefacts aimed at the senses that were popularised as part of an incipient mass culture to be consumed in the everyday intimacy of the domestic space. It examines optical devices (thaumatrope, kaleidoscope, chromatrope, panoptic polyorama) and sound objects (pianola, gramophone). The aim is to contribute to de-assigning them to a single sensory domain, from which they have commonly been studied, whether it is sight or hearing. I will also argue that these devices contributed to the training of the senses in their everyday use, not only sight and hearing, but also touch, and their relationship with each other.

Beyond introducing students to these visual artifacts, the course encourages them to engage with new objects of study and familiarize themselves with visual studies as a field. Ultimately, it aims to expand their understanding of how visual culture can be used to analyse both past and present.

Bibliography: 

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Byerly, Alison: Are We There Yet? Virtual Travel and Victorian Realism. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2013.

Classen, Constance, ed: A Cultural History of the Senses. In the Age of Empire. London; New York; New Delhi; Sydney: Bloomsbury, 2014.

Crary, Jonathan: Suspensions of Perception: Attention, Spectacle, and Modern Culture. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2001.

Crary, Jonathan: Techniques of the Observer. On Vision and Modernity in the Nineteenth Century. Cambridge, Massachusetts; London, England: MIT Press, 1992.

Crossick, Geoffrey; Jaumain, Serge; eds: Cathedrals of Consumption. The European Department Store, 1850–1939. Aldershot: Ashgate, 1999.

Cruz, Jesús: “Building Liberal Identities in 19th Century Madrid: The Role of Middle Class Material Culture”. The Americas, vol. 60, n. 3 (January 2004), volume dedicated to material culture, pp. 391–410.

Grau, Oliver: Virtual Art: From Illusion to Immersion. Trans. Gloria Custance. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003, pp. 103–104.

Griffiths, Alison: Shivers Down Your Spine: Cinema, Museums, and the Immersive View. New York: Columbia University Press, 2013

Gunning, Tom: “Hand and Eye: Excavating a New Technology of the Image in the Victorian Era”. Victorian Studies, vol. 54, n. 3, issue devoted to “Papers and Responses from the Ninth Annual Conference of the North American Victorian Studies Association” (Spring 2012), pp. 495–516.

Hahn, H. Hazel: Scenes of Parisian Modernity: Culture and Consumption in the Nineteenth Century. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.

Hernández Barbosa, Sonsoles: Exciting the Body: Sensoriality and Capitalism in Modern Culture. London: Palgrave, 2025 (translation from Spanish: Vidas excitadas. Sensorialidad y capitalismo en la cultura moderna, 2022).

Hernández Barbosa, Sonsoles: “The Maréorama in the 1900 Universal Exhibition: a simulated Mediterranean voyage from the banks of the Seine”. Early Popular Visual Culture (published online 25 Nov 2022). doi: 10.1080/17460654.2022.2146152

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Iskin, Ruth E.: “Selling, Seduction, and Soliciting the Eye: Manet’s Bar at the Folies-Bergère”. The Art Bulletin, vol. 77, n. 1 (March 1995), pp. 25–44.

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Miller, Michael B.: The Bon Marché. Bourgeois Culture and the Department Store, 1869–1920. London; Boston; Sydney: George Allen & Unwin, 1981.

Rappaport, Erika A.: “The Senses in the Marketplace: Stimulation and Distraction, Gratification and Control”. A Cultural History of the Senses. In the Age of Empire. Ed. Constance Classen. London; New York; New Delhi; Sydney: Bloomsbury, 2014, pp. 69–88.

Seremetakis, Nadia, ed: The Senses Still. Perception and Memory as Material Culture in Modernity. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1994.

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Vannini, Phillip; Waskul, Dennis; Gottschalk, Simon: The Senses in Self, Society and Culture. A Sociology of the Senses [2012]. New York: Routledge, 2014.