Puppets and Puppetry before 1500

Sponsoring Organization(s)

Special Session

Organizer Name

Alexa Sand

Organizer Affiliation

Utah State Univ.

Presider Name

Alexa Sand

Paper Title 1

Did Liturgical Puppets Exist in the Middle Ages?

Presenter 1 Name

Christophe Chaguinian

Presenter 1 Affiliation

Univ. of North Texas

Paper Title 2

Why Is the Puppet Magicalistical? Notes on Theurgy, Scale, and Late Platonist Aesthetics

Presenter 2 Name

C. M. Chin

Presenter 2 Affiliation

Univ. of California-Davis

Paper Title 3

Puppet or Automaton? The Roraffe of Strasbourg Cathedral

Presenter 3 Name

Michelle Oing

Presenter 3 Affiliation

Yale Univ.

Start Date

10-5-2018 3:30 PM

Session Location

Bernhard 158

Description

Situated at the margins of several disciplinary boundaries, the history of puppets and puppetry in Europe and the Mediterranean region during the Middle Ages has never received the sustained treatment it deserves. Individual scholars have made important contributions to our understanding of how puppetry emerged as one of the characteristic art forms of early modern urban culture in both the Islamic and the Christian contexts, but standard histories of puppetry tend to treat the whole period superficially, often repeating assertions that are more folkloric than evidenced-based. This panel seeks to bring together a substantial and cohesive body of scholarship on pre-modern puppetry that will address growing interdisciplinary interest in the performing objects, cultural exchanges, texts, and images of medieval puppetry.

Alexa K. Sand