Phototextuality and the uses of literature in the modernist period 1

16 Maio 2018, 10:00 • Ângela Fernandes

The first session of the seminar is composed of a general introduction to the topic of the seminar. The multiple interactions between photography and literature in the modernist period are situated within a broader framework of literary history, cultural studies, media studies and word-image interactions from the second half of the nineteenth century onwards. Several of these more general perspectives are addressed through an in-depth reading of selected chapters from W.J.T. Mitchell, Picture Theory. Essays on Verbal and Visual Representation (1994) (Introduction, Chapter 3, Chapter 5). Issues that will be addressed during the class regard methodological questions regarding the study of the verbal and visual, Mitchell’s criticism of (modernist aesthetics of) purity and medium specificity, his claim that all media are mixed media, and his analysis of broader cultural and ideological implications of word-image interactions. Students are asked to prepare the class with the help of a number of questions on the various chapters of the book.