Call for Papers: 51st International Congress on Medieval Studies, May 12–15, 2016

Session organizer: Evelyn Meyer, Department of Languages, Literatures & Cultures, Saint Louis University, and Christian Schneider, Department of Germanic Languages & Literatures, Washington University in St. Louis
Sponsor: Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Saint Louis University

Text and Images in Medieval Manuscripts: Toward a Typology

Following up on this year’s panel on “Mis-Imaging the Text in Illuminated Manuscripts of Medieval Narratives” at Kalamazoo, this session seeks to further explore the complex relationships between text and images in medieval manuscripts. Previous research has shown that illuminations in manuscripts, in part, follow their own rules and principles, rather than strictly ‘visualizing’ the textual content of the artifact. We still lack, however, a precise account of the possible relationships into which texts and images entered. Images serve to structure and frame a text, adding additional layers of meaning to it, sometimes even contradicting it. Moreover, we need to consider those instances in which the illuminations themselves contain text, such as inscriptions, labels (tituli), or banderoles. What can we learn from the placement of images in an actual manuscript about the interrelationship between text and images? What new insights do we gain by shifting our focus towards a typology of images and their relationship to the text? How does the arrangement of text and image in Latin manuscripts differ from that in vernacular artefacts of the Middle Ages, specifically with regard to the slow but steady shift from semi-oral to literate modes of text reception in the vernacular? We welcome contributions that work toward a typology of possible relationships between text and image(s) in medieval manuscripts, thus leading us to a deeper understanding of the interconnected dynamic between texts and images in medieval manuscript culture(s).

Please send 1-page abstracts and a completed Participant Information Form (http://wmich.edu/medieval/congress/submissions/index.html#PIF) to Prof. Evelyn Meyer (emeyer16@slu.edu) and Prof. Christian Schneider (christianschneider@wustl.edu) by September 15, 2015.