Text and Image in Manuscript Cultures: Cognitive Approaches

The material turn in the philologies has made us aware that a main characteristic of manuscript culture is the book’s materiality and visuality. Such material and visual aspects may range from illuminations and drawings to colored, decorated or illuminated initials, from titles and rubrics to marginal annotations, remarks, doodles and scribbles, from various fonts, sizes and colors of the writing, to abbreviation signs and punctuation, among others. The relationship between image and text varies in manuscripts produced in different cultures and periods, but this interplay is always central and illustrative of both the production process and meaning-making reception of the text.

Questions under discussion include but are not limited to:
What are the cognitive affordances of creating and reading a multimodal text? What embodied aspects of cognition play a role in creating and reading multimodal texts and artworks? How can these processes be studied and described with the help of recent developments in cognitive theory, and how can they, vice versa, shed light on some basic tenets of cognitive science?

Invited Speakers: 

• Stephen Asma, Professor of Philosophy at Columbia College Chicago
• Lukas Rösli, Professor of Old Norse philology at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

Program

Monday 27^th Nov

12.00-12.15: Welcome and intro Stijn Vervaet and Stefka G. Eriksen

Session I: Keynote I (chair: Stijn Vervaet)

• 12.15-13.30: Stephen Asma, Columbia College Chicago
  Making Sense with Images and Stories: Imperative Representations

13.30-13.45: Coffee-break

Session II: Cognitive traces of images (chair: Stefka G. Eriksen)

• 13.45-14.30: Karin Kukkonen, UiO
  Sketching on a Type-Writer: The Case of Cora Sandel
• 14.30-15.15: Stijn Vervaet, UiO
  Drawing as Thinking: Perception and Embodiment in Leonid Šejka’s Work

15.15-15.45: Coffee-break

Session III: From manuscript culture to print (chair: Stijn Vervaet)

• 15.45-16.30: Ingrid Eskild, UiO
  Visual innovations in the popular-scientific journal al-Muqtataf (1876-1885)
• 16.30-17.15: Mats Haraldsen, UiO
  From memory palaces to comics: Tracing cognition from mind to paper

Tuesday 28^th of Nov

• 9.00-10.00: Oslo Cathedral school, Ullevålsveien 31, Oslo
  Guided tour of the library by main librarian Ernst Bjerke.  

Session IV: Keynote II (chair: Stefka G. Eriksen)

• 10.30-11.45: Lukas Rösli, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
  Why can I understand it even if I don't have the encryption key? Ciphered paratexts in Old Norse-Icelandic manuscripts and their reception.

11.45-13.00: Lunch  

Session V: Reading texts and images in medieval social spaces (chair: Stijn Vervaet)

• 13.00-13.45: Line C. Engh, UiO
  Reading with body and soul: The cognitive affordances of Hrabanus Maurus’ poems De laudibus sanctae crucis
• 13.45-14.30: Stefka G. Eriksen, UiO
  Translating visuality and textuality in medieval manuscripts: a case-study of the story about Yvain, the Knight of the Lion

This event is organized by Stijn Vervaet and Stefka Georgieva Eriksen. If you are interested in joining the event, or have any questions, you can contact them at: stijn.vervaet@ilos.uio.no or s.g.eriksen@iln.uio.no.