Image Theories and Visual History
A.Y. 2025/2026
Learning objectives
The course aims to provide students with a critical perspective on images (and artworks in particular) as essential tools for the analysis of historical events and contexts. Even before the advent of photographic media, images have been often regarded as visible evidence, that is, as reliable ways of capturing the real, just like written documents and testimonies. At the same time, images contribute to shaping cultural identities on an international, national and local scale, thus informing and conditioning our historical interpretation. Combining aesthetics, visual culture and memory studies, the course focuses on material culture and the relationship between human beings and iconic artefacts, addressing questions like: How do images contribute to the practices of historiography, the preservation of cultural heritage, and the construction/destruction of public and shared memory? In which ways do they trigger both personal and social narratives? How do individuals, groups, and societies deal with their past through images (by remembering, forgetting, or neglecting it), and how do they imagine their future? Historical space, along with historical time, will also be given due consideration, with particular regard to the image of the city and visualisations of urban space as an environment playing a fundamental role in the construction of collective memory, reflecting the process of inscription of memory and the multi-layered identities that inhabit them.
Expected learning outcomes
Through both a theoretical approach and the presentation of case studies, this course will enable the participants to become aware of the power of images in enriching our knowledge of the past and present and in constructing cultural identities. Students will become familiar with the uses of images as historical evidence, discussing their double-edged capacity of giving the viewer a sense of witnessing events. They will be able to understand the fundamental questions related to memory, remembrance, and commemoration in relation to images. In particular, they will be able to critically reflect upon how politics, ideologies and the visual arts influence each other, with particular reference to monuments and public art. They will also gain expertise in articulating the significance of images as sites of negotiation and sedimentation of historical facts, social and cultural identities, and shared historical memories. The skills acquired could be employed in the analysis of historical visual data, as well as to collaborate with archives, libraries, and cultural institutions, and with organizations and professional communities dedicated to preserving and promoting cultural heritage.
Lesson period: Second semester
Assessment methods: Esame
Assessment result: voto verbalizzato in trentesimi
Single course
This course cannot be attended as a single course. Please check our list of single courses to find the ones available for enrolment.
Course syllabus and organization
Single session
Lesson period
Second semester
Course syllabus
Since Herodotus' opsis, eyewitnessing has played a crucial role as a key source for historical investigation. Autopsy, the capacity of seeing with one's own eyes, stands as the most reliable of investigative tools and also a check on the other kinds of evidence and testimony. Images too have served as historical evidence, after and before the advent of photographic media, also acting as remainders of the past. But what is their reliability in documenting the real? Sight can also be manipulated, visual evidence can be misinterpreted, and witnesses can be deceived by what they see. So, what is the function of visual imagery and artefacts in the practice of historiography? How can events be represented through pictures and visual media? And what role do they play in the elaboration of major historical events? The course aims to discuss the problematic status of images as sources of evidence, their capacity of mediating memory and informing local and global collective identities.
Unit A (3 CFU): Images as historical sources
Unit B (3 CFU): Images as visual evidence
Unit C (3 CFU): Images and memory
Unit A (3 CFU): Images as historical sources
Unit B (3 CFU): Images as visual evidence
Unit C (3 CFU): Images and memory
Prerequisites for admission
No requisites in addition to those required for admission to the degree programme.
Teaching methods
The course aims to introduce the theoretical tools and key concepts to develop a critical analysis of visual documents, through lectures, presentations of case studies, text readings, in-depth examination of images and audio-visual materials. Students will be constantly encouraged to actively contribute and participate in the examination of images and visual documents through collective discussion and ¬Q&A sessions.
Teaching Resources
Burke, Peter, Eyewitnessing: the uses of images as historical evidence, London: Reaktion books, 2019.
Georges Didi-Huberman, Images in spite of all: four photographs from Auschwitz; translated by Shane B. Lillis, Chicago-London, University of Chicago Press, 2008
Matthew Fuller, Eyal Weizman, Investigative aesthetics: conflicts and commons in the politics of truth, New York: Verso, 2021.
Eyal Weizman, Forensic architecture: violence at the threshold of detectability, New York: Zone Books, 2017.
Capdepón, Ulrike, Dornhof, Sarah (Eds), Contested Urban Spaces: Monuments, Traces, and Decentered Memories, Palgrave Macmillan 2022. Available online at https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-87505-3
Georges Didi-Huberman, Images in spite of all: four photographs from Auschwitz; translated by Shane B. Lillis, Chicago-London, University of Chicago Press, 2008
Matthew Fuller, Eyal Weizman, Investigative aesthetics: conflicts and commons in the politics of truth, New York: Verso, 2021.
Eyal Weizman, Forensic architecture: violence at the threshold of detectability, New York: Zone Books, 2017.
Capdepón, Ulrike, Dornhof, Sarah (Eds), Contested Urban Spaces: Monuments, Traces, and Decentered Memories, Palgrave Macmillan 2022. Available online at https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-87505-3
Assessment methods and Criteria
For attending students, the overall assessment of the theoretical and applied skills acquired will be based on a final oral examination concerning the course topics and bibliography, aiming to verify: the level of knowledge of the historical and theoretical aspects and their application to case studies; the ability to make connections and articulate argumentations; the use of appropriate language and specific terminology; and the student's active participation during classes, especially with regard to the discussion and analysis of case studies (30%).
For non-attending students, knowledge and competences developed will be assessed exclusively by the final oral examination.
Type of evaluation method: mark in 30ths.
For non-attending students, knowledge and competences developed will be assessed exclusively by the final oral examination.
Type of evaluation method: mark in 30ths.
Part A and B
M-FIL/04 - AESTHETICS - University credits: 6
Online courses: 40 hours
Part C
M-FIL/04 - AESTHETICS - University credits: 3
Online courses: 20 hours