Composition: Making Meaning Through Design
An Interdisciplinary Symposium on Material Texts
University of California, Santa Barbara
15-16 May 2014
“Composition” can refer to the content of a text, piece of music, or work of art, to its visual and material manifestations, as well as to the act of production. As form relates to function, so each sense of composition influences the other. From inscriptions and scrolls, to broadsheets and serials, to graphic novels and e-books, design elements inform reading practices and structure meaning. Composition: making meaning through design is an interdisciplinary symposium that asks how design features (such as format, material, type font/ script, and imagery, to name but a few) can alter, enhance, or otherwise affect the transmission of meaning and shape a text’s use. This symposium aims to bring together scholars from a wide range of disciplinary perspectives in order to promote engaging new dialogues in book history. We warmly invite submissions for papers that may consider a broad scope of topics including, but not limited to:
- the relationship of materiality and content
- how a text’s format or design shapes reading practices
- the interplay of text and image
- how the author-reader relationship is mediated through design
- design interventions by readers
- changes in form or design over time
- how a text’s format expresses space, time, sound
- how media borrow and adapt formal or design elements from one another
- how archival practices affect or interact with design
Proposals of approximately 300 words (for 20-minute paper presentations) should be submitted along with a CV to materialtexts@gmail.com by January 15, 2014.
We are able to offer limited funds to offset travel costs for participants. If you wish to be considered for such funding, please indicate this when submitting your proposal.
This symposium is organized by the History of Books and Material Texts Research Focus Group at UCSB, convened by Sophia Rochmes, History of Art and Architecture; Charlotte Becker, English; and James Kearney, English.
Sponsored by the Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship in Critical Bibliography at Rare Book School (http://www.rarebookschool.org/fellowships/mellon), with co-sponsorship from UCSB’s History of Books and Material Texts Research Focus Group (http://materialtexts.wordpress.com), Interdisciplinary Humanities Center (http://www.ihc.ucsb.edu), and Department of the History of Art and Architecture (http://www.arthistory.ucsb.edu).