Project description
Literature and visual culture
Writers can use pictures in different ways to nurture or inspire the imagination. As such, literature is integrated into visual culture. Thus, questions emerge concerning the use of pictures by writers and the relationship between the literature and pictures. The EU-funded HANDLING project will apply the toolkit of visual anthropology and visual studies to writers to further understand the visual ecosystems. While literary studies usually focus on the text, this project considers the image as the core of the literary act. HANDLING focuses on the French and French-speaking domain covering the period from the beginning of mass reproduction in the 1880s to today’s digital practices, and aims to restore a model of relationships between image and text.
Objective
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.
Fields of science
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Funding Scheme
ERC-STG - Starting GrantHost institution
1348 Louvain La Neuve
Belgium