Reassessing Kantorowicz's The King's Two Bodies: Representations of Secular Power in Word and Image
Sponsoring Organization(s)
Special Session
Organizer Name
Shannon L. Wearing, Melanie Hanan
Organizer Affiliation
Institute of Fine Arts, New York Univ., Stern College for Women, Yeshiva Univ.
Presider Name
Shannon L. Wearing, Melanie Hanan
Paper Title 1
Usque ad celum erectus: Ernst Kantorowicz's Interpretation of the Frontispiece of the Aachen Gospels and Its Consequences for the Discipline of Art History
Presenter 1 Name
Johannes von Müller
Presenter 1 Affiliation
Warburg Institute, Univ. of London
Paper Title 2
The Queen's Two Faces: The Portraiture of Elizabeth I of England
Presenter 2 Name
Emilia Olechnowicz (Congress Travel Award Winner)
Presenter 2 Affiliation
Instytut Sztuki, Polska Akademia Nauk
Paper Title 3
The Shah's Two Bodies? Metaphor, Materiality, and Eros in Persianate Depictions of Kingship
Presenter 3 Name
Michael Chagnon
Presenter 3 Affiliation
Japan Society Gallery
Start Date
12-5-2016 1:30 PM
Session Location
Schneider 1345
Description
Since its publication in 1957, Ernst Kantorowicz’s The King’s Two Bodies has achieved canonical status in the field of medieval history. This sweeping account of medieval political theology describes how the king came to be perceived as a gemina persona, possessing both a “body natural” (material and mortal) and a “body politic” (immaterial and immortal). While art historians frequently cite the book in their analyses of medieval iconography, many scholars have criticized Kantorowicz’s study for a variety of perceived faults, in particular for being reductive or anachronistic, as epitomized by its application of an early modern (Tudor) political theory to earlier centuries. The papers presented in this session will critically engage with Kantorowicz’s paradigm of the king’s two bodies in order to reassess its benefits and/or limitations as a means of interpreting medieval texts and images. The session aims to interrogate Kantorowicz’s methods and conclusions, to examine the utility of the “two bodies” as a hermeneutic paradigm, and to consider the implications of this provocative book for twenty-first-century scholarship.
Reassessing Kantorowicz's The King's Two Bodies: Representations of Secular Power in Word and Image
Schneider 1345
Since its publication in 1957, Ernst Kantorowicz’s The King’s Two Bodies has achieved canonical status in the field of medieval history. This sweeping account of medieval political theology describes how the king came to be perceived as a gemina persona, possessing both a “body natural” (material and mortal) and a “body politic” (immaterial and immortal). While art historians frequently cite the book in their analyses of medieval iconography, many scholars have criticized Kantorowicz’s study for a variety of perceived faults, in particular for being reductive or anachronistic, as epitomized by its application of an early modern (Tudor) political theory to earlier centuries. The papers presented in this session will critically engage with Kantorowicz’s paradigm of the king’s two bodies in order to reassess its benefits and/or limitations as a means of interpreting medieval texts and images. The session aims to interrogate Kantorowicz’s methods and conclusions, to examine the utility of the “two bodies” as a hermeneutic paradigm, and to consider the implications of this provocative book for twenty-first-century scholarship.