Hoff, Ralf von den
Image – Narration – Context: Visual Narration in Cultures and Societies of the Old World
Narratives are primary agents in the production of social meaning and identity. They are articulated not only in oral and literal forms of expression, but also through images and artefacts. By virtue of their materiality, these objects bearing narrative potential have their specific contexts of appreciation. But how do images actually trigger narration? Can we describe the social loci of their observation? And how do these contexts – social practices, religious rituals, demonstrations of political power – interact with, and re-affect the artefacts in question? Both case studies from archaeology and approaches from a wider range of cultural studies seek to answer these questions within a broader methodological framework.
Image, thought, and the making of social worlds
What is the status and role of image systems in human culture and history? This volume presents original studies examining the complex interplay between images, thought processes, and the making of social worlds from the pre-Columbian Americas to the ancient Mediterranean and early China. Moving beyond a notion of images as “merely illustrative” of propositions expressed in language or writing these studies draw insights from the civilisations of Amazonia, Oceania, and Central Africa to reveal the autonomy of image systems as intellectual devices in their own right, and their enduring role in the development of human societies across the traditional divide of “oral” and “literate” cultures.
