Perlego: Critical Perspectives on Image and Text, Taylor Institution, University of Oxford, July 3–4, 2020

From writings that explore the textuality of images to the use of images in the illumination of texts, the signifying systems of image and word rub up against one another in various ways, making the meeting of text and image a long-standing area of scholarly fascination.

The PERLEGO conference takes a critical approach to text-image scholarship, bringing together early career scholars working across different disciplines to explore methodological issues arising at the interface of textual and visual analysis.

With a view to initiating productive conversations about methodology, PERLEGO seeks to draw out strands of critical approaches from across research areas, time periods, and genres, to consider how integrated approaches to image and text analysis can construct robust and polyphonic histories of meaning, production, and interpretation.

Hosted in July 2020 at the University of Oxford, this two-day conference unfolds as a series of panels, roundtable discussions, keynote lectures, and a hands-on session at the Ashmolean Museum.

PERLEGO invites abstracts on critical perspectives on image and text in areas including but not limited to the following:

• Visual strategies in texts  
• ‘Textual’ strategies in works of art
• The idea of ‘genre’ across text and image
• The graphic act
• Hierarchies of signification
• Disciplinary hierarchies and structures of power
• Historical reconstruction and the period eye
• Text and image in colonial and postcolonial contexts
• Museum labels and taxonomies

We welcome abstracts from researchers and practitioners working in all fields, including (but not limited to): English and Comparative Literature, Art History, Modern Languages, History, Media Studies, Design Studies, and Museum Studies.