Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection
2012 Symposium
Sign and Design

Script as Image in a Cross-Cultural Perspective (300-1600 CE)
October 12-14, Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C.

Dumbarton Oaks is pleased to announce a symposium, to be held in the
Music Room of Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, D.C., on Friday, October
12th, Saturday, October 13th, and Sunday, October 14th, 2012. Please
note that the symposium will be two and a half days: sessions will
begin at 9 am on Friday, and conclude Sunday afternoon.

In the Middle Ages and beyond, legal, documentary, exegetical, literary
and linguistic traditions have organized the relationship between image
and letter in diverse ways, whether in terms of equivalency,
complementarity or polarity. In this symposium, we wish to explore
those situations in which letter and image were fused, forming hybrid
signs that had no vocal equivalent and were not necessarily bound to
any specific language. Although imagistic scripts work on the visible,
arranging representation, they challenge the legible in terms of
linguistic signification. The incorporation of figures, objects,
colors, even events, within the letter insists on the material
dimension of the sign. As the iconicity of the letter transforms
reading into gazing, the script-like character of the image compels
consideration of the co-signification of sign forms. In mediating each
other into altered formats, the script-image disrupts a-priori models
and ideas and thus redefines both text and image in terms of their
signifying and representational processes. The disruptive effect of
imagistic script inheres in a suspension of meaning that opens the
system of representation and signification in which it was produced and
circulated.

During the three-day conference, we propose to bring together scholars
of Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Arabic and Pre-Columbian cultures from
numerous disciplines – art history, history, literature, religion,
linguistics, and law – to consider the purpose, operations, agency and
specular forms of iconic scripts. What sort of communication did they
facilitate? Did they imply reception by the inner eye? In prompting
recognition of the aesthetic dimension of texts, did they open
governance, law, literature, diplomatics, and theology to sensorial
appreciation? Did they enforce a latent principle of
non-representability? Does their use imply what might be called an
iconomy, a practice of policing images?

The symposium is organized with Brigitte Bedos-Rezak (New York
University) and Jeffrey F. Hamburger (Harvard University). Symposium
speakers include Elizabeth Hill Boone, Ghislain Brunel, Anne-Marie
Christin, Tom Cummins, Vincent Debiais, Ivan Drpi?, Antony Eastmond,
Beatrice Frankel, Cynthia Hahn, Herbert Kessler, Katrin Kogman-Appel,
Didier Méhu, Irvin Cemil Schick and Irene Winter.


Program

Schedule
Friday, October 12

8:30 am
Coffee on the Music Room Terrace

9:00 am
Welcome
Jan Ziolkowski, Dumbarton Oaks

9:15 am
Introductory Remarks
Jeffrey Hamburger, Harvard University


Before the Letter
Moderator: Jeffrey Hamburger, Harvard University

9:30 am
Elizabeth Boone, Tulane University
Pictorial Talking: The Figural Rendering of Speech Acts and Texts in
Aztec Mexico

10:15 am
Anne-Marie Christin, Centre d’étude de l’écriture et de l’image
Visible/Lisible : Pour un Typologie iconique de l’écriture

11:00 am
Discussion and coffee


The Iconicity of Script
Moderator: Gudrun Buehl, Dumbarton Oaks

11:30 am
Ivan Drpic, University of Washington
Chrysepēs Stichourgia: The Iconicity of the Byzantine Epigram

12:15 pm
İrvin Cemil Schick, Istanbul Şehir University
Islamic Calligraphy between Representation and Text

1:00 pm
Discussion

1:30 pm
Lunch in the Orangery


Monumental Characters
Moderator: Ioli Kalavrezou, Harvard University

3:00 pm
Antony Eastmond, Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London
Loud Inscriptions, Silent Prayers

3:45 pm
Irene Winter, Harvard University
Text in Sculpture, Text on Sculpture: Cases of the Ancient Near East

4:30 pm
Discussion and coffee

5:30-7:30 pm
Reception in the Orangery and Green Garden


Saturday, October 13

9:00 am
Coffee on the Music Room Terrace

Iconic Literacy
Moderator: Juan Antonio Murro, Dumbarton Oaks

9:30 am
Vincent Debiais, Université de Poitiers
From Christ’s Monogram to God’s Presence. Epigraphic contribution to
the Study of crimson in Romanesque sculpture

10:15 am
Tom Cummins, Harvard University
From Many into One: The transformation of Pre-Columbian signs into
European designs in the sixteenth century

11:00 am
Discussion and coffee break


The Text(ure) of Images
Moderator: Margaret Mullett

11:30 am
Cynthia Hahn, Hunter College, City University of New York
Excavating the Letter in the Carolingian Sacramentary

12:15 pm
Didier Méhu, Université Laval
A Spectacle for the Senses: The Description and Inscription of Church
Dedication in Liturgical Manuscripts (Tenth – Twelfth Centuries)

1:00 pm
Discussion

1:30 pm
Lunch in the Orangery


Imaging the Ineffable
Moderator: Jan Ziolkowski, Dumbarton Oaks

3:00 pm
Herbert L. Kessler, Johns Hopkins
"De una essentia innectunctur sibi duo circuli:" Dynamic Signs and
Trinitarian Designs

3:45 pm
Katrin Kogman-Appel, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
The Role of Hebrew Letters in Making the Divine Visible

4:30 pm
Discussion and coffee


Sunday, October 14

9:30 am
Coffee on the Music Room Terrace

Instrumental Images
Moderator: Brigitte Bedos-Rezak, New York University

10:00 am
Ghislain Brunel, Archives Nationales, Paris
Entre glorificacion du texte et nouvelle esthétique de l’image :
L’illustration des chartes françaises au Moyen Age

10:45 am
Beatrice Fraenkel, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales
Signatures-rébus

11:30 am
Discussion

12:00 pm
Concluding Remarks
Brigitte Bedos-Rezak, New York University


Space for this event is limited, and registration will be handled on a
first come, first served basis. For further information, including
preliminary abstracts, please visit the website
(http://www.doaks.org/news/2012-symposium) or contact Francisco López
(directorsoffice2011doaks.org).