A key feature of the Visual Studies major is the senior project, a year-long individual exploration of some topic within the Visual Studies field. The form of the thesis may vary (research essay, a coherent body of visual work, installation, digital presentation, performance, or a combination). Research essays should be approximately 40 to 50 pages in length and be accompanied by some form of visual presentation or supplement. Projects that are primarily visual presentations must be accompanied by a 20+ page paper documenting the thinking and research that went into the project and articulating its relevance to the field of Visual Studies. 

Each senior project must have two faculty advisers. They will typically be professors with whom the student has worked previously, but they must specialize in different fields and sectors. For example, if the first adviser represents a discipline located in sector B, the other adviser must come from sector A or C. Grades for senior theses are assigned primarily by the faculty advisers with input from the faculty leading the senior thesis seminar (VLST 3950).

All projects are exhibited in the annual exhibition of Visual Studies senior theses that takes place in the weeks before commencement in a gallery on campus. Students are responsible for installing their work in the gallery and removing it at the close of the exhibition. Each senior class collectively designs the exhibition announcement and exhibition catalogue with the guidance of the Visual Studies Program Coordinator and the thesis seminar faculty.

Past Senior Projects

2026

No Ecstasy in the White Cube: Rave Atmospheres and the Failure of Institutional Immersion (advisors: Hammam Aldouri, Gregory Vershbow)

2025

Framing Resistance: Visual Culture & the Power of Identity In Chicanx Movements from the 20th century

Gamified Images: How Shifting Salience and Meaning Can Influence Visual Perception (advisors: Elizabeth Johnson, Ian Verstegen)

Innate Nature: Aesthetic and Physiological Responses to "Nature" and its Representation (advisors: Michael Avery, Anjan Chatterjee) 

The Mirror and the Lens: A Study of Self-Observation & Self-Fashioning in Mirrors, Selfies, and Art (advisors: Zehra Husain, Ann Kuttner)

Visual Legacies: The Role of Family Archives in Shaping Memory and Identity (advisors: Kaitlin Pomerantz, Ian Verstegen) 

2024

The Palimpsest of Hagia Sophia (advisors: Ann Kuttner) 

2023

Gowns, Liberation & Intersectionality (advisor: Gregory Vershbow) 

I kept your memory all the way home: A Multimedia Quilt (advisors: Anjan Chatterjee, Kayla Romberger)

(Re)Examining Horror (advisors: Peter Decherney, Ian Verstegen)

Art as Defined by the Agency of the Spectator (advisors: Arthur Cohen, Elizabeth Johnson)  

2022

Museum Space: Evolving Museum Architecture for a Changing Society (advisors: Scott Aker, Arthur Cohen)

Future Aesthetics: The Sublime In Virtual Reality (advisors: Michael Leja, Gregory Vershbow)

Virtually There: The Future of Human Relationship Building in the Metaverse (advisors: Elizabeth Johnson, Vershbow)

Universal Largeness: Abstract Expressionism’s Unique Attention to Large-Scale Canvases (advisor: Will Schmenner)

Illusion: On the Unhealthy Pursuit of Luxury Projects (advisors: Tom Bendtsen, Tanya Jung)

Linguistic Relativity and Color Vision: Effects of Lexical Color Categories of Perception (advisors: Gary Hatfield, John Trueswell)