Description du projet
Littérature et culture visuelle
Les auteurs peuvent utiliser les images de différentes manières pour nourrir ou inspirer l’imagination. C’est en cela que la littérature peut être intégrée dans la culture visuelle. Toutefois, un certain nombre de questions concernant l’utilisation des images par les écrivains et la relation entre la littérature et les images restent à résoudre. Le projet HANDLING, financé par l’UE, appliquera la boîte à outils de l’anthropologie visuelle et des études visuelles aux écrivains, afin de mieux comprendre les écosystèmes visuels qu’ils créent. Alors que les études littéraires se concentrent généralement sur le texte, ce projet mettra l’image au cœur de l’acte littéraire. HANDLING se concentrera sur le domaine français et francophone couvrant la période allant du début de la reproduction de masse, dans les années 1880, aux pratiques numériques actuelles. Il entend ainsi rétablir un modèle de relations entre l’image et le texte.
Objectif
Not only does the writer’s hand hold the pen, it manipulates pictures as well. Writers touch, hoard, cut, copy, pin and paste various kinds of pictures and these actions integrate literature in visual culture in many ways that have never been tackled as a whole before.
Some writers spent their life surrounded by pictures taken from magazines, creating an inspirational environment; yet others nurtured their imagination with touristic leaflets and visual advertisements; others created fictional characters based on collected portraits. What do writers do with pictures? How does literature stage the pictures handled? From very concrete and banal uses of pictures will emerge a new vision of literature as intermediality in action.
This investigation applies the tool set of visual anthropology and visual studies to writers for a deeper understanding of visual ecosystems. Covering a large period, from the beginning of mass reproduction in the 1880s and the digital practices of today, HANDLING focuses on the French and French-speaking field and stands as a laboratory to refashion a broader model for relationships between image and text. Its main challenge is to get to the root of contemporary iconographic practices.
HANDLING is unconventional because literary studies usually focus on the text: contrary to the norm, it sets the image at the very centre of the literary act. This approach might yield promising results for the visibility of literature in the future, especially in exhibitions. Making these practices visible will make literature itself more visible.
As an internationally recognized specialist of text-image relationships with an in-depth knowledge of French/Belgian literature and photography, I will build a team and lead this 5-year ambitious project. Grounded in interdisciplinarity, it will show the significant and unexpected role of literature in material visual culture.
Champ scientifique
Programme(s)
Thème(s)
Régime de financement
ERC-STG - Starting GrantInstitution d’accueil
1348 Louvain La Neuve
Belgique