Critical & Visual Studies is an interdisciplinary bachelor of arts (BA) degree program in the social sciences, history, and philosophy. This program emphasizes the development of critical skills, community engagement, and responsiveness to contemporary global challenges. Housed in a dynamic department and drawing from a range of academic disciplines, this major complements Pratt’s vibrant creative culture and serves the Institute’s mission to educate responsible contributors to society.

The major in Critical & Visual Studies helps students to understand and critique the social forces, institutions, and infrastructures that shape cultural forms and historical processes. Majors in this program analyze and interpret influential ideas, artifacts, images, and material realities—near and distant, past and present. Key courses explore diverse forms of life and psychological experiences, the effects of capitalism and the marketplace, life-cycles of objects from production to discard and waste, the impact of race and privilege, the formation of social inequalities, the power of imagination, and struggles for justice. While providing training in critical and visual analysis and empirical research, the major also offers formational experiences at the intersection of global cultures, in the creative arts and industries, and with local communities—preparing Pratt students for creative intellectual work and social engagement throughout their future careers.

About the Bachelor of Arts in Critical & Visual Studies

Students in Critical & Visual Studies pursue individual paths of study across a curriculum that builds from disciplinary foundations in history, philosophy, and the social sciences toward both critical insight and practical applications. From their first year, students are oriented to global history and the insights of critical theory, philosophy, and social thought, and choose from a diverse offering of general education electives. In later semesters, the Major Electives provide pathways toward more specialized study. Students select from Major Elective courses in Social Science Disciplines and Modern Thought, and have the opportunity to study Psychology, Sociology, Anthropology/Archaeology, Gender Studies, Philosophy, Political Theory, and Critical Theory. Further, all majors focus on Visuality/Materiality, honing their skills and knowledge through the systematic and rigorous study of images, material artifacts, and their circulations through infrastructures and systems of practice. Finally, they put theories to the test of Urban Praxis.

Every Critical & Visual Studies student also participates in a sequence of research seminars, and their studies culminate in a Senior Thesis Project that they design and execute with the advice and guidance of faculty.

The Critical & Visual Studies major benefits from all the departments in the School of Liberal Arts & Sciences and the many strengths of the Institute, and students can elect to pursue a minor in fields ranging from History of Art & Design to Creative Writing to Sustainability, as well as other minors offered by the Department and by the other schools at the Institute. A complete list of minors is available here: https://catalog.pratt.edu/undergraduate/minors/

The Critical & Visual Studies program will offer students:

• A critical understanding of visual culture, its global variations, and its foundations in human capacities and social organization.
• Training in social theory, visual interpretation and analysis, empirical research methods, and varied modes of communication to diverse audiences.
• The ability to critically interpret written, oral, and visual forms, repertoires, and imaginative products and to employ the critical tools of semiotics, rhetoric, historiography, psychoanalytic and symbolic interpretation, and the analysis of material and historical processes.
• The opportunity to pursue in-depth research and independent inquiry, to participate in curatorial and editorial endeavors, and to apply critical theories in urban praxis and social justice work.
• Knowledge and methods that will set them on their own pathways toward a successful and creative career.

The First Year: Fundamentals

The first year of the program provides students with a foundation for future learning, with dedicated seminars introducing critical theory, visual studies, philosophy, and global literature. Students also take a focused introduction to a social science discipline (e.g., anthropology, psychology, sociology, political science), a core Math or Science class, and participate with other Pratt students in General Education classes.

The Second Year: Defining Pathways

The second year of the program is rich in elective offerings to familiarize students with the breadth of studies in the Department, and orients them to cultural studies, visual and critical methods, media studies, modern critical thought, and related interdisciplinary fields. A methods seminar outlines pathways for future research, while faculty-led advising helps students establish their further course of study and chart their final two years of college.

The Third Year: Symposium, Research, and Focused Study

In the third year of the program, students begin engaging with academic research and focus on a topic for extended study, through a Symposium series featuring faculty and guest lecturers and the Junior Research Seminar. They also pursue major electives in the areas of Urban Praxis and critical theory, beginning to put their theoretical grounding to practical and analytical use.

Senior Year: Thesis Research and Independent Exploration

In the fourth year, students take departmental and all-Institute electives and complete their studies with the capstone Senior Thesis. The senior thesis hones students’ abilities to express themselves, argue their ideas, and make fresh sense of the broader social and cultural worlds they research.

Hannes Charen
Critical & Visual Studies Coordinator
hcharen@pratt.edu

• Define key critical theories/approaches and employ them to interpret images and artifacts, ideal and material forms, cultural experiences, and historical processes.
• Describe and analyze cultural, historical, and political events and processes in global comparative terms, showing awareness of diverse and sometimes conflicting perspectives, practices, interpretations, and evaluative positions.
• Construct clear and persuasive arguments using the concepts and frameworks of social science research, visual studies, and cultural studies.
• Demonstrate knowledge of and skills in research methods: by explaining how particular methods (e.g., introspection, interviewing, archival research, visual analysis, sensory engagement, inter alia) are integrated into a project of knowing, and by presenting valid research results in writing as well as other media.
• Develop a research project and communicate evidence and findings from research experiences or critical analyses in a senior thesis.