Visual Cultures and Critical Theory

We live in a world of the image. In many ways, images have replaced words as the defining aspect of cultural identity, whilst at the same time they have become part of our global culture. The rapidly developing discipline of visual cultural studies has become the key ares for examining the issues of our age. This book explains issues and concepts such as psychoanalysis, cultural theory, psotmodernism, queer theory, gender studies and narrative theory. The major theorists are all covered as the authors look at the significance of the visual in the works of Foucault, Barthes, Lacan, Derrida, Baudrillard and Guattari. Taking up a range of themes such as spectatorship, pleasure, power, doubles, hallucination and the frame, the book explains them within the context of these theoretical developments.