13915
Seminar
SoSe 23: Beyond Image & Text: Multimodal Artefact Analysis in Ancient Studies
Cale Johnson, Elisa Roßberger
Additional information / Pre-requisites
The main language of readings and discussions will be English. Student contributions can be presented in German.
Comments
Communication with and through artefacts is and always has been multimodal (Kress 2010). Understanding an artefact’s message requires the spectator/user to consider its material, visual, textual, aural and/or spatial qualities and to apply multiple forms of literacy and sensory perception. Since the early days of writing in the late fourth millennium BCE, people of ancient Mesopotamia created inscribed and figuratively rendered objects (clay tablets, statues, reliefs, vessels, weapons, cylinder seals etc.) that could act for/to a person or a divine being and/or invite certain actions. These structural, often playful and artistic artefact-text-image combinations necessitate an interdisciplinary approach which centers on the semiotic codes, sensory modalities and cognitive processes activated by these objects.
The seminar introduces students to fundamental principles and ongoing discussions in social semiotics and multimodality studies (communication sciences). We will combine close readings of selected scholarly contributions from these fields with discussions of their applicability to the study of antiquity in general and the ancient Near East in particular. Knowledge of cuneiform and ancient Near Eastern languages (Sumerian, Akkadian), or the history and culture of the ancient Near East are useful but not compulsory (transliterations and translations will be provided for texts; equally, introductions to the cultural background of the objects where needed).
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Suggested reading
Barthes, Roland (2005), Rhetorik des Bildes („Rhétorique de l'image“ [1967]). In: Ders.: Der entgegenkommende und der stumpfe Sinn („L'obvie et l'obtus“). Frankfurt/M.
Johnson, J.C. (2021), Statuary Peers: Speaking to the Statues of Famous Kings in the Early Mesopotamian Literature, Archiv für Orientforschung, 54, 233–254.
Johnson, J.C. (2013), Indexical Iconicity in Sumerian Belles Lettres, Language and Communication 33, 26–49.
Kress, Gunther (2010). Multimodality: A Social Semiotic Approach to Contemporary Communication, New York.
Wildfeuer, Janina, John Bateman, und Tuomo Hiippala (2020). Multimodalität: Grundlagen, Forschung und Analyse – Eine problemorientierte Einführung. Multimodalität, Boston/Berlin [also available in English: Multimodality. Foundations, Research and Analysis]
Winter, Irene J. (2009), On Art in the Ancient Near East Volumes I & II. Culture and History of the Ancient Near East 34/1 & 2. Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2009.
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14 Class schedule
Regular appointments
Wed, 2023-04-19 14:00 - 16:00
Wed, 2023-04-26 14:00 - 16:00
Wed, 2023-05-03 14:00 - 16:00
Wed, 2023-05-10 14:00 - 16:00
Wed, 2023-05-17 14:00 - 16:00
Wed, 2023-05-24 14:00 - 16:00
Wed, 2023-05-31 14:00 - 16:00
Wed, 2023-06-07 14:00 - 16:00
Wed, 2023-06-14 14:00 - 16:00
Wed, 2023-06-21 14:00 - 16:00
Wed, 2023-06-28 14:00 - 16:00
Wed, 2023-07-05 14:00 - 16:00
Wed, 2023-07-12 14:00 - 16:00
Wed, 2023-07-19 14:00 - 16:00