Abstract:

During the seminar we aim to present our new book “Visual Studies: A Social Scientific Perspective” (Routledge 2025). The result of a dialogue between two authors both occupying an intermediate position between anthropology and visual culture this book presents a transcultural and generative introduction to the field of visual studies. Written primarily, but not exclusively, as an introduction to visual studies for students and scholars in the social sciences, the book explores the multiple meanings of images and visual culture in human life. Insisting on the role of the look as a medium for studying the visual field, this book reminds us of the importance of images not only as representations of the world but also as proper co-travellers and companions of our journeys on the earth. Primarily a theoretical work the book contains also a number of transcultural examples and applications in specific terrains, such as on the significance of faces, on cameras and their environments, the visual culture of death, immersive viewing, x-ray imagery and the meaning and role of shadows. Presenting the book we will attempt at focussing on those parts that have a major bearing for anthropology and ethnography.

Bio:

Paolo Favero is Professor of Visual Cultures and Anthropology at the University of Antwerp and Head of the Department of Communication Studies. He explores the nexus between visual culture and existential matters both theoretically as well as through the practice of image-making. He currently conducts research on death, care and aesthetics in India and Italy. He is the author of Paolo of "Image-Making-India" (Routledge, 2020) and "The Present Image"(Palgrave Macmillan, 2018). 

Asko Lehmuskallio serves as Professor of Visual Studies and is director of the Visual Studies Lab at Tampere University, Finland. Working at the intersection of visual studies and media studies, he is particularly interested in the interrelations between images, bodies and visual technologies, specifically in those between seeing and knowing. Lehmuskallio’s work has been published widely, reflecting his trajectory at universities in Germany, the UK, Spain, the US and Finland. For more info, see https://www.tuni.fi/en/people/asko-lehmuskallio