IMC 2008: Sessions
Session 123: The Unnatural World, I: Visualizing Wonders
Monday 7 July 2008, 11.15-12.45
Sponsor: | International Center of Medieval Art, The Cloisters, New York |
---|---|
Organiser: | Asa S. Mittman, Department of Art & Art History, California State University, Chico |
Moderator/Chair: | Nicholas B. Deford, School of Art, Arizona State University |
Paper 123-a | Ungefraegelicu deor: Monsters and Truth in the Wonders of the East (Language: English) Index terms: Art History - Painting, Language and Literature - Old English, Manuscripts and Palaeography, Philosophy |
Paper 123-b | Bodleian Library, Bodley 614: Reading the Wonders of the East in a Norman Context (Language: English) Index terms: Art History - Painting, Language and Literature - Latin, Local History, Manuscripts and Palaeography |
Paper 123-c | The Wandering Wonderer: Spectatorship, Scopophilia, and the Wonders of the East (Language: English) Index terms: Art History - Painting, Geography and Settlement Studies, Language and Literature - Old English, Manuscripts and Palaeography |
Abstract | Many scholars have turned to issues of monstrosity and abnormal geographies, using these themes to draw conclusions about medieval cultures and discourses. Such subjects are often viewed as being aberrations, outside of nature. One of four interrelated sessions proposed on 'The Unnatural World' (conceived in response to and in accordance with the year's theme), this panel focuses on the depictions of the Wonders of the East, an illustrated text central to understandings of 'The Unnatural World' and a major source for monstrous imagery throughout the Middle Ages. Each of these talks uses the Wonders as the means toward gaining a more complex understanding of the medieval contexts in which they were produced. |