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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-aUngefraegelicu deor: Monsters and Truth in the Wonders of the East
(Language: English)
Susan Kim, Department of English, Illinois State University
Index terms: Art History - Painting, Language and Literature - Old English, Manuscripts and Palaeography, Philosophy
Paper 123-bBodleian Library, Bodley 614: Reading the Wonders of the East in a Norman Context
(Language: English)
Alun James Ford, Department of English & American Studies, University of Manchester
Index terms: Art History - Painting, Language and Literature - Latin, Local History, Manuscripts and Palaeography
Paper 123-cThe Wandering Wonderer: Spectatorship, Scopophilia, and the Wonders of the East
(Language: English)
Asa S. Mittman, Department of Art & Art History, California State University, Chico
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.