Word and Image

Through a series of workshops, colloquia and related events, this research cluster will bring together researchers throughout the University who have an interest in writing with (or about) images of any kind, and how this can be considered a type of creative practice. It will provide a forum through which new understandings of the relationship between text and image can be innovated and a critical space in which researchers might develop bigger projects pertaining to image-based writing. The cluster will support dialogue that extends the critical boundaries of ekphrastic writing through spearheading new approaches to writing with images, including both cross-disciplinary work as well as more experimental forms of image-based writing. As James Elkins has noted of art history, art criticism, art theory, visual studies and other image-based fields, there are well-worn disciplinary paths to which scholars typically adhere when discussing images but ‘virtually no discourse of what might make writing [itself] interesting or otherwise challenging: we mainly praise writers who are clear or remark on those who are not’. By focusing on image-based writing as a form of creative practice in its own right rather than simply as a tool or means to an end, and through opening up ekphrastic dialogue to fields outside of art writing proper, this cluster will examine the challenges and opportunities of writing with images, and consider how such creative work affords new ways of thinking about disciplinary paradigms and the representation of knowledge. It will dovetail with a number of research activities being undertaken by scholars across the University and strengthen some image-based work currently being supported by NUHRI.

The cluster will:

• Consider how image-based writing might be understood to be a form of creative practice.
• Stimulate new approaches to image-based writing by creating cross-disciplinary dialogue between researchers from a wide range of subject areas from across SACS, HAAS and the University more broadly.
• Offer a series of regular, thematic workshops in which researchers can present new or early-stage work relating to image-based writing. Part of this might include an away-day for participants and an end of year conference or related event.
• Provide a space for researchers from different fields to collaborate with a view to developing ambitious research projects relating to the core cluster themes.
• Consider how ekphrastic writing might inform or innovate teaching practice.

If you would like to join the cluster please contact Ed.Juler @ncl.ac.uk