Holy Cross Hosts International ‘Word and Image’ Conference

Cantor Gallery exhibition opens in conjunction with conference themes

Scholars from around the world will meet at Holy Cross to explore interdisciplinary themes as the International Word and Image Conference returns to Holy Cross June 24-26.

This is the fourth time the conference has met at Holy Cross. Sponsors, along with the College, are the international French/English journal Interfaces and the Université Paris 7 Denis Diderot. The conference venue alternates between the two campuses.

The focus of this year’s conference is on “practitioners of the verbal and plastic arts.” In conjunction with the conference, a special exhibition — Word/Image/Text — at the Cantor Art Gallery has opened and will continue through July 22.

Plenary speaker is Wendy Steiner, the Richard L. Fisher Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania, founding director of the Penn Humanities Forum, and past chair of the Penn English department. Her fields are 20th-21st-century literature and visual art, contemporary fiction, and ethical issues in the arts. Among her recent books are Literature as Meaning: A Thematic Anthology (2005); Venus in Exile: The Rejection of Beauty in Twentieth-Century Art (2001); and The Scandal of Pleasure: Art in an Age of Fundamentalism (1995). Steiner’s cultural criticism has appeared in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Nation, London Independent, London Review of Books, and Times Literary Supplement.

She will be a showing a full-length recording of her opera, “The Loathly Lady,” with composer Paul Richards and artist John Kindness, which includes short animation clips, still painted images, and footage of the performers.

Members of the Holy Cross faculty have been part of this multi-disciplinary conference since its inception 21 years ago. Maurice A. Geracht, professor of English at Holy Cross and co-chair of the International Word and Image Conference, has been involved in the conference since its founding and is also co-editor of Interfaces.

Co-edited by the University of Paris 7 and Holy Cross, Interfaces is a bilingual illustrated journal focusing on the dividing line — the “interface” — between language and the image, two means of expression different and yet inseparable. This interface was displaced when the cinema made the image move, then speak, thus making time its medium and creating a new type of discourse. But the old interface between language and the static image still remains and its power is enhanced by modern technology.

Frédéric Ogée, professor of English literature at the Université Paris7 Denis Diderot, is co-editor of Interfaces and co-chair of the conference.

The accompanying exhibition, WORD/IMAGE/TEXT brings together the work of three contemporary artists who all explore the intersection of word, image and meaning within their chosen media. The work of Joseph Farbrook, Zoey Stites and Anik Vinay will be on view from June 24 – July 22, with an opening reception on Wednesday, June 24, from 5 to 6 p.m. in the gallery. A selection of early prints by Shusaku Arakawa, lent by a private collector, will also be presented in the entrance area of the gallery.

For more information, visit the International Word and Image Conference Web site. 

Pictured: Anik Vinay; Voyelles En Partance, 1993; fruit wood, paper; 8 x 2, 5 x 5 cm