Exeter University becomes first in UK to offer module - about porn

[stumbledin]

Dr João Florêncio will be teaching 'Pornography: Bodies, Sex, and Representation' as part of the Art History and Visual Culture course at Exeter Uni from September 2020. He says:

"Pornography is a genre that has always accompanied and sometimes driven developments in visual media and technologies."

And there are all these women saying how it is about exploiting women and encouraging men to see women as pieces of meat, when all the time it has been about advancing media developments - NOT!

Link to article www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/uk-news/exeter-university-becomes-first-uk-17119791

I don't think there's anything wrong with academic studies about porn. In fact it's a good thing. There are academic studies about prostitution.

The sentence "Pornography is a genre that has always accompanied and sometimes driven developments in visual media and technologies."

Is open to interpretation. Nobody's saying it's a GOOD thing that pornography has influenced the media but it has. It most certainly has.

I fear the worst. He seems to be influenced by queer theory, which is not known for its respect for women (of the classic variety).

“My interdisciplinary teaching and research navigates the intersections of modern and contemporary visual culture and performance with queer theory, philosophy, medical humanities and the posthumanities with a focus on issues of sexuality, embodiment, ecology, ethics and community.”

humanities.exeter.ac.uk/arthistory/staff/florencio/

Masively influential, from Manet's Olympia to The new Suspiria.

But questions of desensitisation and normalisation of porn-derived imagery and tropes is not History of Art but Sociology.

It's not necessarily a bad thing. It just depends how it's pitched/handled.

Well I'm not sure how it will be taught and the influences (Foucault springs to mind) but I've taught about porn in a university albeit from a feminist perspective (pinup to porn) and surely that is what Gail Dines does too, she's a sociologist. Porn is a reality and it does have a long history which bears looking at to understand what it was, is and could potentially be to society.

It just depends how it's pitched/handled.

It's pitched/handled via queer theory as the academic himself states in his bio. As in - porn is great because it breaks down boundaries, as is anything that breaks down boundaries.

Struggling to see how it's not a bad thing.

Struggling to see how it's not a bad thing.

While I agree with you about it being taught from a queer theory perspective and all that entails (which is why Foucault crossed my mind) I don't think it is a bad thing in general - see Dines who has done some incredible lectures on this subject - but in this case yes, I'm not sure it will be teaching it from an impact on society perspective nor with a view to lessening it's impact. If it is about making society more comfortable with porn (as if we aren't a horribly porn soaked culture already) I would find this course well ... a bit creepy to be honest.

How did I know this would be a man discussing porn?

Honestly, people get paid to teach utter BS nowadays and if you have a real degree and lots of qualifications you can't get a lecturing post for love nor money. Is it any wonder the value of a university education has declined so much in the last 30 years if this is the stuff they teach.

How did I know this would be a man discussing porn?

The other thing to add here is that History of Art is a subject where 90% of the students are female. My male colleagues would run a mile before putting themselves in a position where they were analysing pornographic material with a group of 19-year old girls. I don't think it says anything good about a male lecturer who does this.