This collection of essays focuses on the way blurred boundaries are represented in pre-modern texts and visual art and how they were received and perceived by their audiences: readers, listeners, and viewers. According to the current understanding that opposing cognitive categories that are so common in modern thinking do not apply to pre-modern mentalities, we argue that individuals in medieval and pre-modern societies did not necessarily consider sacred and secular, male and female, real and fictional, and opposing emotions as absolute dichotomies.The contributors to the present collection examine a wide range of cultural artifacts – literary texts, wall paintings, sculptures, jewelry, manuscript illustrations, and various objects as to what they reflect regarding the dominant perceptual system – the network of beliefs, worldviews, presumptions, values, and norms of viewing/reading/hearing different from modern epistemology strongly predicated on the binary nature of things and people. The essays suggest that analyzing pre-modern cultural works of art or literature in light of reception theory can lead to a better understanding of how those cultural products influenced individuals and impacted their thoughts and actions.
Nissim / Tohar
Blurred Boundaries and Deceptive Dichotomies in Pre-Modern Texts and Images jetzt bestellen!
Zielgruppe
Scholars and students of visual culture, art, comparative literat
Weitere Infos & Material
Dafna Nissim, Ben-Gurion Universität Negev, Beer Sheva, Israel; Vered Tohar, Bar-Ilan Universität, Ramat Gan, Israel.
Dafna Nissim, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva, Israel; Vered Tohar, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel.