Detailed Information
Program of Study
The Visual and Cultural Studies Program, housed in the Department of Art and Art History, offers students the chance to earn a master’s or doctoral degree by doing intensive work simultaneously in several of Rochester’s humanities departments. Primary faculty members for the Visual and Cultural Studies Program teach in the Departments of Art and Art History, Anthropology, English, and Modern Languages and Cultures, all in the College of Arts and Sciences. Students take courses in those departments and may also take courses in such departments as anthropology, history, music, and philosophy. About 20 faculty members participate in the program each year, including the Visual and Cultural Studies Steering Committee, which guides the program.
An innovative graduate program with a unique emphasis on visual and cultural representation, Rochester’s Visual and Cultural Studies Program provides students with an opportunity to study critically and analyze culture from a social-historical perspective. The program stresses interpretation of art, film, and media within historical and ideological frameworks. Because the main contributing faculty members work in art and art history, film and media studies, and comparative literature, students are able to relate recent developments in literary and cultural theory to visual works and investigate the interrelationships between visual texts and critical theory.
All doctoral students take eight core courses: four in visual studies and four in critical theory. In addition, they take six electives, chosen from an extensive list of courses offered by the three primary departments; when appropriate, they may substitute courses from other disciplines. All students participate in the Visual and Cultural Studies Colloquium in the fall semester of their first year of study.
Most Ph.D. students spend 3½ years completing 60 credits of course work and 30 credits of research. After this, they take a qualifying exam, based on their reading and preliminary work on their dissertation. Students serve as teaching assistants for a number of introductory courses or as research assistants.
Research Facilities
The University’s libraries contain holdings of 2.5 million volumes and 16,000 periodicals. Housed within the Rush Rhees Library, the Art and Music Library includes 40,000 books and bound journals, 300 journal subscriptions and standing orders for monograph series, and a growing collection of videotapes. The Visual Resource Collection at the University consists of more than 140,000 slides and mounted pictures. The University’s Memorial Art Gallery also maintains its own library of 17,000 books and bound periodicals. The Film and Media Studies Center has several thousand films and videotapes available for viewing. Students can use the film and photograph collections at the world-renowned International Museum of Photography in the George Eastman House in Rochester.
Financial Aid
The Visual and Cultural Studies Steering Committee awards graduate teaching and research assistantships to students in the program. Tuition scholarships are also offered to qualified doctoral candidates. Assistantships currently carry an annual award of up to $15,000 beyond tuition. The University also awards Sproull Fellowships and Provost’s Fellowships on a competitive basis, which carry a maximum stipend of $20,000 annually for up to two years. Students can receive extra funding by assisting in studio art courses or by teaching summer school.
Cost of Study
For the most up-to-date tuition costs, please see the University’s Web site at http://www.rochester.edu/college/AAH/.
Living and Housing Costs
Accommodations for graduate students are available in four University-owned projects and in off-campus housing; for a brochure, a rate sheet, an application, and off-campus housing listings, applicants should write the Housing Coordinator at the Community Living Program, 020 Gates Wing, Susan B. Anthony Halls, P.O. Box 270468, Rochester, New York 14627-0468.
Student Group
The Department accepts 5 to 7 students each year, generally all of whom are full-time. Currently, there are 27 students in residence. The diverse graduate group is equally divided between men and women, and most students are receiving some form of financial aid.
Location
Located on the south shore of Lake Ontario, Rochester is the cultural and technological center of upstate New York. More than 800,000 residents of the metropolitan area can enjoy the Memorial Art Gallery, the George Eastman House (the world’s leading museum and archive of photography and motion pictures), and the University’s Eastman Theatre, where concerts are given by the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra.
The University
The University, established in 1850, is private and coeducational. Four of the University’s seven schools and colleges, including the College of Arts and Science, are located on the River Campus. The School of Medicine and Dentistry and the School of Nursing are within a 5-minute walk, and the Eastman School of Music is 2 miles away in the downtown area. Graduate work is carried on in each of the University’s units. There are 1,000 full-time faculty members.
Applying
The deadline for applications is February 1 for the following September; offers of admission are sent to applicants on or about March 15. The application is available online only. Along with the online application, students should submit a personal statement, three letters of recommendation, official undergraduate and graduate transcripts, a writing sample, and GRE scores. International students must also supply TOEFL scores.
The Faculty and Their Research
- Visual and Cultural Studies Core Faculty and Associated Faculty
- Janet Berlo, Professor of Art History/Visual and Cultural Studies; Ph.D., Yale. Native American art history and museum representation of Native peoples, Plains Indians drawings, Native American women and art, textiles and American visual culture.
- Douglas Crimp, Fanny Knapp Allen Professor of Art History/Visual and Cultural Studies; Ph.D., CUNY. Contemporary art and criticism, race and representation, gay studies.
- Thomas DiPiero, Professor of French/Visual and Cultural Studies; Ph.D., Cornell. French prose fiction of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
- Paul Duro, Professor of Art History/Visual and Cultural Studies and Chair, Department of Art and Art History; Ph.D., Essex (England). Theories of imitation in European painting, institutions of art.
- Robert Foster, Professor of Anthropology; Ph.D., Chicago. Social theory, nationalism, globalization, mass consumption.
- Susan Gustafson, Professor of German; Ph.D., Stanford. Eighteenth-century German literature, psychoanalysis, and feminism.
- Rachel Haidu, Assistant Professor of Art History; Ph.D., Columbia. Postwar American and European art, history of photography.
- Rosemary Kegl, Associate Professor of English; Ph.D., Cornell. Sixteenth- and seventeenth-century English literature, contemporary Marxist and feminist theory.
- John Michael, Professor of English/Visual and Cultural Studies; Ph.D., Johns Hopkins. American literature, cultural studies, and critical theory.
- Greta Niu, Assistant Professor of English; Ph.D., Duke. Film studies, Asian literature.
- Joan Saab, Associate Professor of Art History/Visual and Cultural Studies and Director of the Program in Visual and Cultural Studies; Ph.D., NYU. Twentieth-century American history, media and culture, urban and community studies, popular culture, cultural studies.
- Jeffrey Tucker, Associate Professor of English; Ph.D., Princeton. African American literature, twentieth-century American literature, science fiction.
- Sharon Willis, Professor of French/Visual and Cultural Studies; Ph.D., Cornell. Modern French literature and literary theory, critical and feminist theory, film theory and visual analysis.
Correspondence and Information
University of Rochester
Visual and Cultural Studies Program
Department of Art and Art History
424 Morey Hall, RC Box 270456
Rochester, New York 14627
Telephone:
585-275-9249
Email:
art_arthist@cc.rochester.edu
