Inscribed Bodies, Etched Surfaces: The Written and Unwritten in the Medieval Islamicate World
Sponsoring Organization(s)
Great Lakes Adiban Society
Organizer Name
Cameron Cross
Organizer Affiliation
Univ. of Michigan-Ann Arbor
Presider Name
Nathan L. M. Tabor
Presider Affiliation
Western Michigan Univ.
Paper Title 1
Kitāb al-Istikmāl: Architecture as Invisible Text at the Aljafería Palace
Presenter 1 Name
Alexandria Brown-Hedjazi (Edwards Memorial Travel Award Winner)
Presenter 1 Affiliation
Stanford Univ.
Paper Title 2
Doing Things with (God's) Words: Self-Authentication in the Masnavi-e Ma'navi of Jalal al-din Rumi
Presenter 2 Name
Matthew B. Lynch
Presenter 2 Affiliation
Bard College
Start Date
10-5-2019 1:30 PM
Session Location
Schneider 1350
Description
Inscribed Bodies, Etched Surfaces: The Written and Unwritten in the Medieval Islamicate World calls on researchers to consider the nature of writing as a material and historical process. How does the materialization of text affect its ontology, and how does the process of its definition shape our epistemic categories? What surfaces admit of writing, and what ones resist it? How does the material text engage with reading, or not-reading? How does new research into inscriptions, epigraphy, papyri, illumination, miniatures, and other underexplored media confirm or challenge our narratives about writing? What are the intellectual, sociocultural, ethical, aesthetic, and symbolic implications of writing in pre-modern Islamicate Eurasia? We seek not only to re-present the role of material objects (books, paper, papyrus) in the fashioning of “text,” alongside its immaterial (spoken, recited, memorized, performed) properties, but also to explore how medieval writers saw “texts” in the physical world all around them: from the wonders of nature, to the monumental works of societies past, to the stories writ on living flesh, all speaking languages that confounded the human tongue and defied mortal interpretation. Cameron Cross
Inscribed Bodies, Etched Surfaces: The Written and Unwritten in the Medieval Islamicate World
Schneider 1350
Inscribed Bodies, Etched Surfaces: The Written and Unwritten in the Medieval Islamicate World calls on researchers to consider the nature of writing as a material and historical process. How does the materialization of text affect its ontology, and how does the process of its definition shape our epistemic categories? What surfaces admit of writing, and what ones resist it? How does the material text engage with reading, or not-reading? How does new research into inscriptions, epigraphy, papyri, illumination, miniatures, and other underexplored media confirm or challenge our narratives about writing? What are the intellectual, sociocultural, ethical, aesthetic, and symbolic implications of writing in pre-modern Islamicate Eurasia? We seek not only to re-present the role of material objects (books, paper, papyrus) in the fashioning of “text,” alongside its immaterial (spoken, recited, memorized, performed) properties, but also to explore how medieval writers saw “texts” in the physical world all around them: from the wonders of nature, to the monumental works of societies past, to the stories writ on living flesh, all speaking languages that confounded the human tongue and defied mortal interpretation. Cameron Cross