Reading visual devices, Turku, Finland / 22-24 May 2025
Visual or graphic devices, such as images, diagrams, charts and tables, often operate between visual and verbal modes to convey information. In books and documents these devices may be used, for example, to illustrate and expand upon the text, to support or distract from the message conveyed by the text, or to aid in the comprehension of complex concepts which would be difficult to express through words alone. Although graphic devices may also communicate through textual elements, their main communicative tools are structure, symbolism, and cultural imagery.
Our project organises an international conference on the study of visual and graphic devices in early books, documents and textual objects in Turku, Finland, 22-24 May 2025.
Keynote speakers:
- Prof. Andrew M. Riggsby (University of Texas): “The Segmentation of Roman Documents”
- Prof. Wendy Scase (University of Birmingham): “Thinking with Visual Devices in a Late Medieval Gentry Household”
- Dr Carla Suhr (University of Helsinki): “The Lizard and the Rat: Images in Early English Printed Texts for Popular Audiences”
We invite contributions from book studies, philology and historical linguistics, textual scholarship, literary studies, history of science, art history, and other related fields, including interdisciplinary approaches. Our main focus is on the medieval and early modern periods.
See the full call here.
Organising committee
Professor Matti Peikola
Dr Mari-Liisa Varila
Dr Sirkku Ruokkeinen
With queries, please contact our conference postbox at visualbookconf@utu.fi.