Introduction: Visual Culture

Abstract

In this introductory text, I am pleased to present this special issue of the Journal of American Studies of Turkey (JAST), which focuses on visual culture, particularly in connection with the United States. Although visual culture has only recently been recognized as a distinct academic field , it is rapidly gaining popularity across various disciplines, ranging from cultural studies to political science. Rather than representing a single branch of academia, it serves as an inherently interdisciplinary crossroads that brings together diverse methodologies emphasizing the visual aspects of human experience.  Scholarship in visual culture generally revolves around three recurrent orientations: the position of the spectator and the act of viewing , the interpretation and decoding of the vast variety of images in our daily lives , and the analysis of the visual as both a reflection and a formative component of culture, ideology, and politics. The main objective of this particular issue is practical: to illustrate how visual culture has been approached across diverse scholarly fields in late 20th and early 21st-century America. To this end, the selected articles touch upon a wide array of subjects, including architecture, poetry, photography, television, and film. 

(The abstract and keywords were prepared retrospectively for indexing purposes using AI-assisted tools and editorial review, based on the original article. They did not appear in the original publication.)