Meanings
- uncountableThe privileging of vision over the other senses.
Within a discursive frame that everywhere betokens the dominance of visuality, cinema is a special case wherein this ocularcentrism can be expressed, as well as negated.
2010, Keya Ganguly, Cinema, Emergence, and the Films of Satyajit Ray, University of California Press, →ISBN, page 2262 more examples
For despite Ellul's apparent isolation, his diatribe against vision is itself merely an instance, perhaps more blatant and apocalyptic than some others, of a now widespread excoriation of what can be called the sins of ocularcentrism.
1988, Martin Jay, “The Rise of Hermeneutics and the Crisis of Ocularcentrism”, in Poetics Today, volume 9, number 2, →ISSN Invalid ISSN, page 308In phenomenology, for instance, the rejection of Cartesian ocularcentrism and the centrality of the body, are in themselves critical components for understanding the nature of social existence.
1995, Suren Lalvani, Photography, Vision, and the Production of Modern Bodies, SUNY Press, →ISBN, page 20Synonyms: visuocentrism
Synonyms & antonyms
nounThe privileging of vision over the other senses.
Origin
Cite this entry
ocularcentrism. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/ocularcentrism
“ocularcentrism.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/ocularcentrism. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “ocularcentrism,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/ocularcentrism.
Source: ocularcentrism on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.