In response to rapid changes in the emerging interdisciplinary field of visual culture, this thoroughly revised and updated second edition of The Visual Culture Reader, the first and leading collection of essays on the topic, brings together the key writings, covering a wealth of visual forms including photography, painting, sculpture, fashion, advertising, virtual reality, and other electronic imaging systems. The second edition features a new introduction, new sections and section introductions, 40 illustrations and previously unpublished material by key writers in the field.

The Visual Culture Reader features introductory essays tracing the development of visual culture studies over the last fifteen years, and extracts grouped into thematic sections, each prefaced by an introduction by the editor. Essays by: Irit Rogoff, Ella Shohat, Jonathan L. Beller, WJT Mitchell, René Descartes, Karl Marx, WEB DuBois, Marshall McLuhan, Frantz Fanon, Roland Barthes, Guy Debord, Louis Althusser, Jean Beaudrillard, Judith Butler, N. Katherine Hayles, Kobena Mercer, Nestor Garlia Canclini, Arjun Appadurai, Nicholas Mirzoeff, Lisa Bloom, Michel Foucault, Geoffrey Batchen, Wendy Chun, Lisa Nakamura, Thomas Campanella, Lisa Parks, Anne Friedberg, Lev Manovich, May Joseph, David Joselit, Tara McPherson, Toby Miller, Andrew Ross, John Fiske, Anne Reynolds, Michele Wallace, Marita Sturken, Donna Haraway, Lisa Cartwright, Anne Balsamo, Amelia Jones, Terry Smith, Timothy Mitchell, Anne McClintock, Malek Alloula, Suzanne Preston Blier, Jill Casid, Adrian Piper, Coco Fusco, Olu Oguibe, Orianna Baddeley, Anthea Callen, Tamar Garb, Thomas Waugh, Reina Lewis, Raiford Morris, Joanne Morra, Marquard Smith, Omayra Cruz, Jacques Lacan, Robert Stam, Carol Mavor, Judith Halberstam