Ever since antiquity poetry and painting have competed for cultural primacy, and intellectuals from Simonides of Ceos to W. J. T. Mitchell have incessantly renewed the debate over the peculiarities of the two arts and their distinctive features and functions. On the other hand, in the practices of verbal and visual representation the two media, words and images, have always tended to support and supplement each other in a variety of ways, from ekphrasis to its counterpart, illustration. The present collection of essays investigates a variety of forms and aspects connected to this interaction by exploring an assortment of past and present cultural artefacts pertaining to arts and expressive modalities such as film, photography, fiction, poetry, drama, television, graphic novel, digital humanities, Renaissance emblematics and early-modern scientific writing.
Carmen Concilio is Associate Professor of English and Postcolonial Literature at the University of Turin. Her research fields include British Modernism, Postcolonial and Environmental Studies. Her most recent publications include, as editor and author, Plots and Plotters (Milan: Mimesis International, 2015); New Critical Patterns in Postcolonial Discourse. Historical Traumas and Environmental Issues (2012). She has also co-edited (with R. Bromley, P. Deandrea) “Engaging Wor(l)ds in Postcolonial Studies: Human Rights, Environmental Humanities and Well-being”, Ricognizioni, vol. 3, n. 5 (2016); (with R. J. Lane) Image Technologies in Canadian Literature: Narrative, Photography and Film (Brussels: Peter Lang, 2009).
Maria Festa is completing her MA in English and Postcolonial studies at the University of Turin. Her research fields include Caribbean and Black British Literature (Caryl Phillips) and relationships between Literature and Photography. She has participated in international conferences and published reviews and short articles.