Informational Images and the Legacy of Humanism: an Interdisciplinary Workshop

University of Pennsylvania

Saturday, February 23, 2019 10:00 am EST

University of Pennsylvania
Jaffe History of Art Building, Room 113
3405 Woodland Walk
Philadelphia, PA 19104

After a long period of neglect, scholarship on what have been variously called informational, epistemic, or non-art images has flourished recently. New approaches for understanding this material have been developed, but to what degree are we still influenced by older traditions, practices, and attitudes? This day-long workshop aims to assess and address the current situation by bringing together scholars from a variety of disciplines who have analyzed “non-art” images from a cross-disciplinary perspective, both practical and theoretical.
 
Program
 
10:00 – 11:00: “The Diagrams in Leonardo da Vinci’s Treatise on Painting” 
Janis Bell, Independent Scholar
 
11:00 – 12:00: “Depictions of the Eye and the Historiography of Epistemic Images in Early Modern Sciences”
Tawrin Baker, Postdoctoral Fellow in Visual Studies at the University of Pennsylvania
 
12:00 – 1:00: Lunch (Provided for Registered Participants)
 
1:00 – 2:00: “The Slip of Sin: Chronological Ordering as Scientific Method in the Case of Hugo van der Goes”
Shira Brisman, Assistant Professor of the History of Art and the University of Pennsylvania. 
 
2:00 – 3:00: “Are We Humanists?”
Donna Bilak, Visiting Research Scholar, The Center for Science & Society Columbia University
 
3:00 – 3:20: Coffee Break
 
3:20 – 4:20: “How to Draw a Risk: Diagramming Fire in Nineteenth-Century Insurance”
Matthew C. Hunter, Associate Professor in Art History and Communication Studies at McGill University
 
4:20 – 5:20: Discussion
 
For more information, and to register and access pre-circulated papers, please email:
tawrin@sas.upenn.edu