Picturing the Language of Images

Book excerpt: Picturing the Language of Images is a collection of thirty-three previously unpublished essays that explore the complex and ever-evolving interaction between the verbal and the visual. The uniqueness of this volume lies in its bringing together scholars from around the world to provide a broad synchronic and diachronic exploration of the relationship between text and image, as well as a reflection on the limits of representation through a re-thinking of the very acts of reading and viewing. While covering a variety of mediaâ "such as literature, painting, photography, film and comicsâ "across timeâ "from the 18th century to the 21st centuryâ "this collection also provides a special focus on the work of particular authors, such as A. S. Byatt, W. G. Sebald, and Art Spiegelman.