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The rise of Visual Studies in the American academy during the 1990’s is part of an after-effect of the institutionalization of Cultural Studies in the United States. It specifically implies a decentering of the discipline of art history toward the interdisciplinary study of sociocultural visibilities. This paper deals with the development of this research field in an intellectual climate still characterized by the “Cultural Wars” engaged by the neoconservatives against certain areas of the academy and the artistic world during the 1980’s. By taking into account the struggles about Visual Studies inside the intellectual Left as an integral part of their definition, this paper analyzes the academic politicizations of the notions of “Visual Culture” and “Visual Studies” in the context of the current French importation and redefinition of these categories.