Connecting Visual Literacy to Theory

This volume seeks to close the gap between education systems across the world that remain systematically devoted to understanding our world through text rather than images. Through an exploration of the contributions of well- and lesser-known visual thinkers from across disciplines and geographies, the contributors offer contemporary appraisals and modern re-conceptualizations of the subject. The book illuminates how experts from various disciplines ranging from art, communication, education, and philosophy laid the foundations for what we know today as visual literacy. These foundations and innovative ways of thinking and understanding images have been disruptive, but until now, have been relatively understudied. As such, the chapters examine the context of individual thinkers, expanding upon famous theories and providing new insight into why these visual and cognitive processes are imperative to learning and education and to disciplines spanning art history, museum studies, philosophy, photography, and more. The authors, all members of the International Visual Literacy Association (IVLA), are committed to advancing the study of visual literacy by raising new questions and proposing new routes of inquiry. A unique and timely exploration of the way we derive meaning from what we see and how we interact with our visual environment, it will appeal to researchers, scholars, and educators from a range of interdisciplinary backgrounds across art, art education, art history, design, information science, photography and visual communication.

Ricardo Lopez-Leon, PhD, is a lead researcher-lecturer at the University of Aguascalientes at the Design Sciences Center in Aguascalientes, Mexico. Dana Statton Thompson, MLIS, MA, MFA, is the assistant dean of libraries and a research and instruction librarian at Murray State University in Murray, Kentucky, USA.

Introduction 1. Rudolf Arnheim: The Power of the Image 2. Vilém Flusser: Play/Read/Write/See 3. The Conspiracy of the Spectacle: Guy Debord's Relevance for Visual Literacy Today 4. Fontcuberta and Postphotography: unveiling the border between fiction and reality 5. Literacy Foundations in June King McFee's Art Education Philosophy 6. Visual Literacy Development through Picturebooks: The Contributions of John Warren Stewig 7. Abigail Housen: Visual Thinking from Museums to the Classroom 8. Unleashing Perception: Exploring Michael Matyushin's Expanded Vision 9. Thinking in pictures: Temple Grandin's contribution to Visual Literacy 10. David Howes: Pioneer of Sensory Studies 11. Nada Shabout: The Challenge of Visual Literacy in Modern and Contemporary Arab Art