This interdisciplinary conference brings together doctoral and post-doctoral researchers from The Courtauld Institute of Art and King’s College London through a focus on Word/Image relations. The conference is inspired by the announcement of the ten-year strategic partnership between The Courtauld and KCL in 2022.
Whilst KCL does not have an History of Art department, and The Courtauld does not have a literature department, there are many researchers at both institutions whose work is interdisciplinary and explores Word/Image relations. The theme of Word/Image offers an ideal opportunity to bring together researchers from The Courtauld and KCL to network and share their research with the public.
The event will offer a collaborative space in which to illuminate the diverse approaches to word and image studies. Word and image intersect frequently in the work of many scholars today, but the ways in which this intersection occurs are multiple and varied. Scholars will have the opportunity to present how their research brings together text and visual culture, highlighting the points of contact between the two disciplines. The conference therefore transcends the study of art history alone, appealing to multiple disciplines. As a result, the event aims to foreground word and image not as distinct sites of independent interpretation, but as contrastable and comparable spaces of enquiry, striving to dismantle the longstanding hierarchy between written word and visual culture.
Coffee and tea will be served before and during the conference. There will also be a drinks reception at the end of the conference for participants and attendees.
The event is organised by Phoebe Day and Rose Pickering (Research Students, The Courtauld).
Contributions from The Courtauld Research Students:
Rachel Alban, Picturing the invisible: The “Illustration” of Persian Romance and Didactic Poetry in Late Timurid and Early Safavid Manuscripts
Kathryn Davies, ‘The deceitful heart pounds and trembles…’: reading into the spiritual soul in Benito Arias Montano’s Humanae Salutis Monumenta (1571)
Bella Kesoyan, From Impressions to Intimacy: Joan Mitchell and Abstract Expressionist Books
Rada Georgieva, Beyond the Paradox of Language: Visual Poetry between Chile and Bulgaria
Contributions from KCL Research Students:
Adrian Fix, Museum Captions: Text and Image in Contemporary Artistic Practices
Benjamin Goff, Image as Word: Film, Philosophy, and Medium Specificity
Christian Keller, Gagging the Open Mouth: How Eighteenth-Century German Aesthetic Theory Dictated the Laws of Portraiture
Masao Morishige, Robert Louis Stevenson’s Gothic Impressionism and Japanese Art
Panel Discussion with Academics from The Courtauld and KCL:
Chaired by Dr Caroline Levitt, Head of the History of Art History at The Courtauld and Convenor of The Courtauld’s Word and Image Research Cluster. Panellists include:
Professor Alixe Bovey, Executive Dean and Deputy Directory, Professor of Art History (The Courtauld)
Dr Nicolas Helm-Grovas, Lecturer in Film Studies (KCL)
Dr Angel-Luke O’Donnell, Lecturer in Liberal Arts and Quantitative Reasoning Education (KCL)
