[Cmrsundergrad] Upcoming Symposium on Allegory

[MRB]

Dear friends and affiliates,

Please join us for the upcoming CMRS Symposium on Allegory next weekend*
(March 6-7)*,  "Pointing at Shadows: The Procedures and Complexion of
Allegory in Medieval Art and Literature."

​
This interdisciplinary symposium will explore the correlation between
surface forms – both literary and visual – and the production of meaning
and the manifestation of obscurity in the late-medieval world. This was a
period in which rhetorical strategies were changing rapidly, as authors and
artists crafted new formal techniques to appeal to diverse audiences that
were increasingly invested in variegated acts and tactics of
interpretation. Central to our inquiry is the question of allegory, and how
it was used not only to produce meaning but also regulate, and potentially
short-circuit, its transmission. By examining the matrices and functions of
allegory in the period in both art and literature, we seek to trouble
binaries such as the practice of allegory as a productive versus
interpretive act; the aspects of allegory that conceal meaning and those
that reveal it; the distinction between the “fixed” symbol and the “fluid”
allegory; and the insistent discussion of appearance versus truth that
frames many of these debates. What effects do these signifying devices have
on the epistemological and aesthetic experience of a text or image's
surface, that is, does allegory fashion it into a passable threshold or an
opaque barrier? How are we to construe and define the cultural “utterance”
conveyed by a work that at least partially traffics in illegibility?
Finally, are these set of issues specific to the developmental history of
allegorical procedures or do they participate in a transmedial shift in
late-medieval signification involving metaphor, analogy, pattern, rhythm,
and/or rhyme as well? By approaching these issues from multiple
disciplinary vantage points, we seek to propose new understandings of how
meaning was made in the period.

Our symposium aims to provide an intimate, supportive environment in which
scholars from numerous disciplines can convene. We envision a one-day
conference with six substantive papers, and a “laboratory” seminar
discussion the following day, where we can engage with the issues raised in
the papers, as well as with texts and images provided by the organizers.

Please see the attached flier for specific details (including times and
locations).

Hope to see you there!

*Miriam Rudavsky-Brody*

*Graduate Student, Department of NELC*
*Graduate Administrative Associate, CMRS*
*Writing Consultant, CSTW*
*The Ohio State University*
*300 Hagerty Hall, 1775 College Rd, Columbus, OH 43210*
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