Word and Image: Creative Encounters across Cultures and Media (Level 5)
Classes
Wednesday 29 April - Wednesday 08 July 2026, 6pm-9pm
11 sessions - Check class timetable
Overview
In this Word and Image: Creative Encounters across Cultures and Media short course, you will be able to develop your interest in visual culture by exploring the complexities of the relationship between word and image in a number of different configurations.
Spanning a range of periods and cultures (e.g. French, German, Korean, Japanese, Spanish), the course adopts a comparative approach and stages a series of word/image encounters between literature and visual art, photography and film. These include topics such as: writing on art in the eighteenth century (Diderot), representing hell in Blake’s interpretation of Dante, mediamorphosis in cinematic approaches to Kafka, photography and lifewriting in the works of Barthes, Guibert and Ernaux, adapting and remaking memories of postwar Japan in Seichō’s Point Zero and Kaykyo’s Fugitive from the Past, amongst others.
Engaging with these materials will allow you to develop your analytical skills and to explore various critical frameworks, key words and debates relevant to the text/image relationship such as ekphrasis, iconotextuality, adaptation and intermediality. We plan to cover:
- Dante and the visual arts
- Diderot and the tableau: writing art criticism in the eighteenth century
- Mediamorphosis: Franz Kafka and cinematic perspectives on modernity
- Photography and the novel: W.G. Sebald and the assertion of reality
- Photography and life writing: Barthes and Guibert
- Photography and life writing: Guibert and Ernaux
- Cármenes of Spain: a symbol across word and image in gender and national perspective
- Gender and South Korean society: adapting Kim Ji-young, born 1982
- Adapting and remaking memories of postwar Japan I: Zero Shoten (Point Zero, Matsumoto Seichō)
- Adapting and remaking memories of postwar Japan II: Kiga Kaykyo (Fugitive from the Past, Minakami Tsutomu)
This course is assessed by a 2500-word essay (50%) and three-hour in-class test (50%).
As a student on this course, you will study alongside Birkbeck students enrolled on one of our undergraduate or postgraduate courses, giving you the opportunity to network with a range of Birkbeck current students whilst you learn.
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Entry requirements
Entry requirements
Most of our short courses have no formal entry requirements and are open to all students.
This short course has no prerequisites.
As part of the enrolment process, you may be required to submit a copy of a suitable form of ID.
International students who wish to come to the UK to study a short course can apply for a Visitor visa. Please note that it is not possible to obtain a Student visa to study a short course.
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How to apply
How to apply
You register directly onto the classes you would like to take. Classes are filled on a first-come, first-served basis - so apply early. If you wish to take more than one short course, you can select each one separately and then register onto them together via our online application portal. There is usually no formal selection process, although some modules may have prerequisites and/or other requirements, which will be specified where relevant.