CFP: 2-Day Conference: PERLEGO - Critical Perspectives on Image and Text
CFP SUBMISSION DEADLINE 1 APRIL More information will be added as it becomes available
From writings that explore the textuality of images to the use of images in the illumination of texts, the signifying systems of image and word rub up against one another in various ways, making the meeting of text and image a long-standing area of scholarly fascination. The PERLEGO conference takes a critical approach to text-image scholarship, bringing together early career scholars working across different disciplines to explore methodological issues arising at the interface of textual and visual analysis.

With a view to initiating productive conversations about methodology, PERLEGO seeks to draw out strands of critical approaches from across research areas, time periods, and genres, to consider how integrated approaches to image and text analysis can construct robust and polyphonic histories of meaning, production, and interpretation.

Hosted in July 2020 at the University of Oxford, this two-day conference unfolds as a series of panels, roundtable discussions, keynote lectures, and a hands-on session at the Ashmolean Museum.

PERLEGO invites abstracts on critical perspectives on image and text in areas including but not limited to the following:


Visual strategies in texts
‘Textual’ strategies in works of art
The idea of ‘genre’ across text and image
The graphic act
Hierarchies of signification
Disciplinary hierarchies and structures of power
Historical reconstruction and the period eye
Text and image in colonial and postcolonial contexts
Museum labels and taxonomies


We welcome abstracts from researchers and practitioners working in all fields, including (but not limited to): English and Comparative Literature, Art History, Modern Languages, History, Media Studies, Design Studies, and Museum Studies. Please send 350 word abstracts as well as a short academic bio by 1st April 2020 to perlego2020@gmail.com.

Organisers: Rebecca Bowen (Oxford), Vittoria Fallanca (Oxford), Anna Espinola Lynn (Oxford), Sophie Koenig (Hamburg).

The Conference is generously supported by the AHRC-TORCH Graduate Fund.
Date: 3 July 2020, 9:00 (Friday, 10th week, Trinity 2020)
Venue: Taylor Institution, St Giles' OX1 3NA
Speaker: Various Speakers
Organisers: Sophie Koenig (Hamburg), Anna Espinola Lynn (Oxford), Vittoria Fallanca (Oxford), Rebecca Bowen (Oxford)
Organiser contact email address: perlego2020@gmail.com
Booking required?: Required
Audience: Public
Editor: Laura Spence