The Visual Culture Working Group is an informal collective of faculty and graduate students working in the areas covered by, or intersecting with, visual culture studies. The Working Group meets several times a semester over lunch to share work-in-progress, discuss current events and plan larger-scale events, such as conferences.
In its current form, the Working Group is the result of an NYU Humanities Initiative grant for 2008-09, chaired by Nicholas Mirzoeff and Marita Sturken. The membership is drawn from visual culture faculty and students both at NYU and other NYC area institutions. In past versions, the Working Group has been funded by a Humanities Initiative grant on "Violence, Visual Culture and Globalization" (chairs: Allen Feldman and Nicholas Mirzoeff) in 2005-06, as well as the NYU-Cooper Union Visual Culture Workshop (chairs: Maren Stange and Nicholas Mirzoeff).
At NYU, the Working Group is centered around the degree programs in Media, Culture, and Communication and works closely with linked programs such as Performance Studies, German, Spanish, Cinema Studies and Photography and Imaging.
In 2009-10 we will be working with the Hemispheric Institute for Performance and Politics.
In our future plans, we envisage a conference on 'The New Everyday' (2009) and creating a New York area liaison for the proposed International Visual Culture Association (2010).