Semiotics, Iconography, Postmodern, Cd
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COURSE DESCRIPTION Central European University / Department of History WORDS & IMAGES. The Idea of History and the Mediality of Culture PhD lecture in "Culture, Religion, and Intellectual History", Fall 2012 (Tuesdays, 11:00–12:40) György E. Szõnyi Office hours before and after class + appointment (N11/114, [email protected]; [email protected]) COURSE DESCRIPTION The goal of the course is to examine the mediality of culture and the modern and postmodern concepts theorizing about it. Since in the focus of the course there are tradition- based cultural representations, the main emphasis falls on the early modern period and the so called emblematic way of seeing. Nevertheless, attention will also be paid to more recent cultural representations, even up to the present. While this topic is strongly related to cultural and intellectual history as well as historical anthropology, this course offers not simply a chronological survey, rather a theoretical- historiographical perspective. The topics of the course are arranged according to the views of late 19th and 20th century modern and postmodern art- and cultural historians and we are going to observe how they tried to understand the cultural representations of past ages, how they tried to bring together efforts to "recover" history and "discover" the meaning of cultural expressions. After defining the concept of "cultural representations" we shall study various aspects of verbal- visual combinations (heraldry, emblems, bestiaries, illustrated books, high art and household design, theatrical performances and public spectacles, etc.) and thus mapping the "emblematic way of seeing and expression" as studied by outstanding scholars of iconology (Aby Warburg, Erwin Panofsky, Ernst Gombrich) and semioticians (Ernst Cassirer, Umberto Eco). The course will conclude with the introduction of postmodern theoretical challenges against traditional cultural historical scholarship and will discuss the perspectives of contemporary approaches (e.g. the recent emphasis on the "body" and on the "other," or "cultural memory / cultural heritage"). Modern media and their historicity will also be touched upon, such as film and hypertext. The learning outcome should consist of 1/ an accumulation of theoretical and historical knowledge about the mediality of culture and the uses of different media for cultural representations in different periods; 2/ students of history should get familiarized in reading scholarly discourse representing semiotic, art historical and cultural historical problematization; 3/ exercises in iconological analysis of various cultural representations should make students aware of the possible good use of cultural representations in historical studies. TOPICS AND READINGS 1. (September 18) Introduction: History and Culture / Words and Images. Concepts and Definitions 2. (September 25) Concepts and Definitions [cont.]. Ut Pictura Poesis. Typology of Images Discussion: from WJT Mitchell, "What Is an Image?" (reader). 3. (October 2) The Emblematic Way of Seeing (from the Antiquity to the Renaissance). Discussion: Introduction of Ripa's Iconologia (reader); Gy. E. Szönyi, "The ‘Emblematic’ As A Way of Thinking and Seeing In Renaissance Culture". Check the full version! (reader) 4. (October 9) Modern Iconography and Iconology 1 (Aby Warburg – Cultural Archeology). Discussion: Warburg, "Italian Art and International Astrology in the Schifanoia Palace, Ferrara." In Warburg, The Renewal of Pagan Antiquity. (reader) 5. (October 16) Modern Iconography and Iconology 2 (Erwin Panofsky – the Structure of Understanding; Ernst Gombrich – Symbolic Images)-; Discussion: Panofsky, “Iconography and Iconology.” In Panofsky, Meaning in the Visual Arts. (reader); “Icones Symbolicae.” In Gombrich on the Renaissance (London: Phaidon, 1993). (reader) 6. (October 30) Modern emblem studies (Peter Daly, Bernhard Scholz, Daniel Russell). Discussion: Russell, “Perceiving, Seeing and Meaning: Emblems and Some Approaches to Reading Early Modern Culture.” In Daly, Manning ed. 1999, 77-92. (reader) 7. (November 6) Postmodern Iconology and the Politics of Images Discussion: W. J. T. Mitchell; Belting, "Likeness and Presence" (reader); Belting, "Image, Medium, Body" (reader) 8. (November 13) Image – Medium – Body [continued] 9. (November 20) History and Representation in the Emblematic Theatre. Discussion: Shakespeare: Henry V. (reader) The drama and the films of Lawrence Olivier and Kenneth Branagh. Read Szönyi, "Matching the 'Falles of Princes' and 'Machiavell'..." (reader) 10. (November 27) Modern Mediality: from Film to Hypertext Discussion: Szönyi, "Hypertext" (reader) 11. (December 4) The Politics of Images: Memory – Museum – Trauma Discussion (presentations): Marr, Curiosity, "Introduction" (reader); Levin, "Irish Museums" (reader); Garoian, "Museum Performance" (reader); Mitchell, "Terror" (reader). 12. (December 11) Modern semiotics: Umberto Eco. Conventionality, hermeneutics, poststructuralism (extra coding, overcoding). Discussion: from Eco, Kant and the Platypus. (reader) ASSIGNMENTS, GRADING Grading is based on 1/ participation in the discussions; 2/ a presentation; 3/ a 10 pages' essay on a cultural representation demonstrating word-image combination – by the help of one of the theories discussed in the course, with proper bibliography and references. REFERENCES AND RECOMMENDED READINGS (titles in red are available electronically) Bal, Mieke. "Figuration." PMLA 119.5 (2004): 1289-92. Bal, Mieke and Norman Bryson. "Semiotics and Art History." The Art Bulletin 73.2 (1991): 174- 208. Belting, Hans. Likeness and Presence: A History of the Image Before the Era of Art. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994. Belting, Hans. "Image, Medium, Body: A New Approach to Iconology." Critical Inquiry 31 (2005): 302-19. Daly, Peter M., John Manning ed. 1999. Aspects of Renaissance and Baroque Symbol Theory, 1500-1700. New York: AMS Press (AMS Studies in the Emblem 14). Eco, Umberto. Kant and the Platypus. Essays on Language and Cognition (1997). London: Secker & Warburg, 1999. Garoian, Charles R. 2001. "Performing the Museum." Studies in Art Education 42.3: 234-48. Gombrich, Ernst. “Icones Symbolicae” (1948). In Gombrich on the Renaissance. London: Phaidon, 1993. Levin, Amy K. 2005. "Irish Museums and the Rhetoric of Nation." The Journal of the Midwestern Modern Language Association 38.2: 78-92. Marr, Alexander. 2006. "Introduction." In R. J. W. Evans and Marr ed. Curiosity and Wonder from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment. Aldershot: Ashgate, 1-21. Mirzoeff, Nicholas. 1998. "What Is Visual Culture?" Introduction to Mirzoeff ed. The Visual Culture Reader. London: Routledge, 3-13. (CEULib) Mitchell, W.J.T. "What Is an Image?" Enlish Literary History 1984 (JSTOR) ––. Iconolgy. Image, Text, Ideology. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1986. “Introduction”, “The Idea of Imagery”, pp. 1-47. ––. "What Do Pictures Want?" October 1997 (JSTOR) ––. "The Unspeakable and the Unimaginable: Word and Image in a Time of Terror." English Literary History 72.2 (2005): 291-308. Panofsky, Erwin. “Iconography and Iconology: An Introduction to the Study of Renaissance Art” (1955). In Panofsky, Meaning in the Visual Arts. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1993, 51-82. Ripa, Cesare. Iconologia. Check: http://emblem.libraries.psu.edu/Ripa/Images/ripatoc.htm; and http://www.levity.com/alchemy/iconol_i.html. Russell, Daniel. "Perceiving, Seeing and Meaning: Emblems and Some Approaches to Reading Early Modern Culture." In Daly, Manning ed. 1999, 77-92. Szönyi, György E. "Matching the 'Falles of Princes' and 'Machiavell': Tradition and Subversion in the Historiography and Iconography of Shakespeare's Histories". In Szönyi & Rowland Wymer (ed.). The Iconography of Power: Ideas and Images of Rulership on the English Renaissance Stage. Szeged: JATEPress, 2000 (Papers in English & American Studies 8), 5-33. ––. “The ‘Emblematic’ As A Way of Thinking and Seeing In Renaissance Culture.” E-Colloquia 1 (2003): http://www.ecolloquia.com/issues/200301/index.html. ––. "Radical Continuities: Hypertextual Links to a Textual Past." Semiotische Berichte 2003. Warburg, Aby. “Italian Art and International Astrology in the Schifanoia Palace, Ferrara” (1912). In Warburg, The Renewal of Pagan Antiquity. Los Angeles: Getty Institute, 1999..