The multimedia craft of wonder

Description

The multimedia craft of wonder: forming and performing marvels in medieval and early modern worlds, 1200-1600

Convenors

• Hannah Bower (University of Cambridge)
• Rebekah King (University of Cambridge)

Summary

This conference will explore the relationship between wonder, translation, and multimodality in medieval and early modern worlds. These were centuries in which new human-made technologies such as mechanical clocks and printing presses were spreading across Western Europe, centuries in which books of secrets and alchemical writings translated from Arabic texts promised new and wondrous ways of constraining nature, and centuries in which monarchs began to engage more than ever in spectacular pageantry and its written commemoration.

The latter part of the period also saw the development of permanent theatres in England, creating different ways of engaging with performance, spectacle, and craftsmanship. This conference will extend recent scholarship on wonder, marvels, and staged spectacles and build upon recent scholarship on multimodality by Claire Sponsler, Seeta Chaganti, Anke Bernau and others by focusing attention on the dynamics of representing wonder (and wonders) in, across, and between media. What risks and opportunities were negotiated – politically, intellectually, and aesthetically – when translating wonder between different genres, literary forms, and media? What happens when wonder is represented by, or stimulated through, materials as diverse as: rope and string, food and drink, paint and pencil, text, narrative or metaphor? In order to approach these questions in a comprehensive and multimodal way, we hope to attract submissions from a wide range of disciplines including (but not limited to) literary studies, history of science and technology, music, philosophy, and drama. We are also interested in hearing from those with experience re-staging medieval and early modern marvels in modern contexts.

In addition to the conference, we are hoping to curate a series of blog posts on our webpage around the theme of wonder, translation, and multimedia. These posts – around 500 words each in length – might explore the theme through a particular object, image, or piece of text.

If you are interested in writing one of these blog posts, please send an email to craftofwonder2021@gmail.com with a 50-word synopsis of what your blog post would cover. You do not have to be presenting at or attending the conference to contribute a blog post.

Visit our conference website.

If you have any specific accessibility needs for this event please get in touch. We will do our best to accommodate any requests.

 

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