Graduate Courses

Core Courses

HAVC 201A: Introduction to Visual Studies and Critical Theory (Fall)
An introduction to the visual studies discipline through a range of discourses and approaches that have proven productive for practitioners of visual studies, in diverse thematic foci and cultural contexts. The course features intensive readings and student-led discussions. Students work on three short papers on topics of their choice that relate to the broader issues discussed in class. Required seminar for all first-year visual studies graduate students. N. Furtado

HAVC 202: Introduction to Visual Studies Methods (Winter) 
Examines research methods and approaches in a variety of materials, cultures, periods and subjects that are relevant in the discipline of Visual Studies. Discussions focus on research and readings by individual VS faculty who share practices, experiences and advice. Required seminar for all first-year visual studies graduate students. T. Demos

HAVC 204: Grant Writing, Pedagogy, and Professional Development (Fall) 
Students work on grants for educational support, dissertation funding, or both; learn about effective, accessible, and equity-minded TA- and GSI-related pedagogy (including developing course content, logistics, assessment, and grading criteria); and cultivate professional skills in relation to the publication process, CV preparation, and gaining employment in academia and beyond. K. Parry

Electives

HAVC 220: Rithy Panh’s Films and Writings (Fall)

The topic of this graduate seminar for Fall 2025 will be the films and writings of Rithy Panh, an award-winning Cambodian-French filmmaker; notably, his film, The Missing Picture (2013), was nominated for the Academy Award for Best International Film. In his work, Panh frequently explores the contexts of the Khmer Rouge genocide and its aftermath. This year, 2025, marked the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam-American War as well as the beginning of the Khmer Rouge genocide; given this year of anniversary, we will take the opportunity to look at how Panh’s films capture the legacy of wars, genocide, trauma, displacement, political ideology, betrayal, conflict and reconciliation. In addition, we will explore themes such nature and culture, food, love and the body. Fortuitously, the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive at UC, Berkeley (BAMPFA) will be screening selected films by Rithy Panh in the fall of 2025 with public lectures and events that students may attend. This seminar provides fruitful opportunities for interdisciplinary exploration and discussion for students from film studies, literature, art, art history, sociology, Asian studies, anthropology and other fields and disciplines. B. Ly

HAVC 273: Colonial Borderlands (Spring)

This course considers sustained colonial cultures of contact (variously conceived) in the context of late 18th to 21st-century colonialisms. Rather than focus on metropolitan representations of colonial others, the seminar concentrates on the complex cross-cultural entanglements and exchanges in colonial “peripheries” that produced novel visual and material representational forms and meanings. While paying close attention to the social and political inequalities that resulted from these encounters, the seminar explores the construction of colonial categories and the transgression of rigidly defined colonial identities as constructed or expressed in visual and material form. Readings and discussions critically examine topics such as: the (in)coherence of cultural, racial, gendered, and religious selves in colonial peripheries and borderlands; bounded categories of “indigene,” “colonial settler,” and “migrant”; mutuality of agency across cultural divides; and issues of hybridity, “mixture,” ethnogenesis, and creolization. Readings place some emphasis on the visual, spatial, and material cultures of Oceania (Australia and the Pacific Islands). S. Kamehiro

HAVC 297: Independent Study

Independent study or research for graduate students. Students submit petition to sponsoring agency. May be repeated for credit. The Staff