Texts have long been written, painted, drawn,
and carved onto objects, buildings, and bodies. Though specialists in the
material culture of certain traditions (particularly Islam) have long
recognized the visual powers of inscribed text, scholars who focus on
pre-modern European and Mediterranean cultures only recently have begun to
appreciate the aesthetic qualities of such inscriptions. However, as these
texts gain attention as images in their own right, the danger of privileging
the decorative qualities of the text over the text itself also increases. By
analyzing the visual and material properties of texts as well as their content,
we may better understand some of the “original” modes and processes
of textual reception and more clearly define the full range of readers that
took meaning from inscriptions.
This symposium will consider
inscribed texts from antiquity to the modern period with the aim of
articulating shared problems or issues related to materiality, legibility, and
literacy and forging connections between readership in different cultures and
contexts. In three thematic sessions, papers will consider the problematic of
the “speaking object,” from Greek vases to early modern dinnerware,
visual and conceptual reactions to pages and books, and the material and visual
properties of inscriptions in the ancient and medieval Mediterranean.