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.

Jeffrey L. Collins
Bard Graduate Center
Welcome

Sean Leatherbury
Research Fellow, Bard Graduate Center
Andrew Morrall
Bard Graduate Center
Introduction

Session 1: The Speech of Objects
Chair: Abigail Balbale, Bard Graduate Center

Ioannis Mylonopoulos
Art History and Archaeology, Columbia University
Between Gibberish and ‘Speaking’ Tableaux Vivants: The Materiality and Aesthetics of Greek Vase Inscriptions

Ittai Weinryb
Bard Graduate Center
When Medieval Objects Speak: Prosopopoeia from Virgil’s Tomb to the Rise of the Automatic

Andrew Morrall
Bard Graduate Center
Table-Talk: Inscriptional Wisdom and the Domestic Arts in Early Modern Northern Europe

Session 2: Reading Books, Reading Pages
Chair: Andrew Morrall, Bard Graduate Center

Sean Leatherbury
Research Fellow, Bard Graduate Center
Sidonius’ Silvery Pages: The Material Contexts of Roman Texts

Susannah Fisher
Research Fellow, Bard Graduate Center
The Ottonians and the Word: Gospel Books as Objects, Images, and Texts

Juliet Fleming
English, New York University
Typopathology

Session 3: Texts to Read and to View
Chair: Sean Leatherbury, Research Fellow, Bard Graduate Center

Karen B. Stern Gabbay
History, Brooklyn College, City University of New York
Memorializing the Mundane: Jewish Graffiti in Mediterranean and Arabian Contexts

Erik Thunø
Art History, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
The Glitter of Relics: Inscriptions, Ekphrasis, and Mosaic

Abigail Balbale
Bard Graduate Center
From Legible Text to Magical Pattern: Arabic Inscriptions in Muslim and Christian Spain