Word, Image and Censorship

These sessions seek papers that examine texts or images that have been accused, prosecuted or prohibited for moral or political reasons from the seventeenth century to the present. Papers may examine topics within a specific historical, religious or political context or analyze theories and shifting definitions of morality or propaganda. Papers might consider the following questions: How did artists and writers confront, subvert or negotiate legal restrictions that defined the illicit or transgressive? What was the interaction between censored material distributed in the popular domain and uncensored works considered literature and fine art? Papers might also address how texts and images challenged the efficacy of legal definitions, while the law, in turn, made more vivid the efficacy of the subversive and forbidden. Papers should address censorship in relation to word and image studies and the conference theme “Efficacy.” Proposals in French and English will be considered.

Please e-mail proposals (300 words maximum) to Lauren Weingarden lweingar@mailer.fsu.edu before 15 October and send a copy to the conference organizers efficacite08@gmail.com.

For more information about IAWIS/AIERTI International Association of Word and Image Studies / Association Internationale pour l’Etude des Rapports entre Texte et Image and the 2008 conference, 'Efficacy / Efficacité' in Paris, France (July 7-11, 2008), go to http://www.iawis.org/.