On the Cusp: Permeable Boundaries between Word and Image in Early Modern Poland-Lithuania and Muscovy

Session Submission Type: Panel

Brief Description

The panel explores the permeability of the boundaries between textual and visual narratives in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Muscovy. By looking at the range of sources from the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries, we examine how the construction of these narratives implied that the construction of meaning was made at the intersections between word and image. In other words, we demonstrate that in these sources, visualization was perceived not solely through its function as an accompaniment or representation but also as a generative tool and a vehicle for creating layered meaning(s) within a text.

Sub Unit

• Early Slavic Studies

Chair

• Valerie Ann Kivelson, U of Michigan

Papers

• History and Illumination in the Radziwill Chronicle - Ines Garcia de la Puente, Boston U

• Making Sense: Ring Construction in the Descriptions of Muscovy by Albert Schlichting and Alessandro Guagnini - Cornelia Soldat, U of Cologne (Germany)

• Blurring the Lines: A Printer’s Mark between Word and Image in Seventeenth-Century Rus’ - Maria Ivanova, McGill U (Canada)

Discussant

• Michael S. Flier, Harvard U