Wrestling with Angels, Searching for Ghosts: Toward a Critical Pedagogy of Visual Culture

TLDR

The article situates critical pedagogy and visual culture as transdisciplinary discourses that interrogate everyday popular culture as a site of struggle, with critical pedagogy critiquing popular culture to promote human agency and visual culture analyzing how visual experiences are constructed within social systems. It investigates how critical pedagogy and visual culture share theoretical foundations to examine and challenge how images and the social imagination shape subjectivities. The article concludes with a synergistic framework that supports art‑education practice addressing everyday life issues beyond the classroom and museum.

Abstract

This article examines critical pedagogy and visual culture as transdisciplinary discourses and practices that focus on the realm of the everyday—popular culture—as a site of struggle. Critical pedagogy is explored as a political practice that critiques popular culture in order to promote human agency and democratic public spheres. Visual culture is examined as field of study that analyzes and interprets how visual experiences are constructed within social systems, practices, and structures. The article investigates how both areas share theoretical allegiances to the study of popular visual culture in order to understand and challenge the way subjectivities are constituted through images and the social imagination. The article concludes with a synergistic framework that provides support for art education practice that addresses issues in everyday life—outside the classroom and beyond the museum realm.