The corpus of Æsopian fables books has been taught to French children and teenagers for centuries. Yet little analysis looks at the production in its entirety. Therefore, within this corpus, I... Show moreThe corpus of Æsopian fables books has been taught to French children and teenagers for centuries. Yet little analysis looks at the production in its entirety. Therefore, within this corpus, I evaluated the relationship between the text, the images, and the educational purpose of various fable authors using 252 visuals, published between 1500 and 2020. Sources include picture books, board games, sheet music, posters, school materials, and even application software. All have in common the aim of pursuing or promoting an educational use of the fables. My research focuses on the role that illustrated fables play in French education.Through a sociological approach that features the concept of médiation littéraire, book history, literary analysis, the study of the layout of the books and intermedial analysis, I conclude that Æsopian fables are used as a social link between generations of French people.They became essential across primary schools in the mid-19th century. Before that, they were mostly intended for socially privileged children whose families could afford a secondary education.Regardless of the century, the illustrations which accompany fables play a role in the text’s adoption across French schools: they participate in the transmission of the genre and other kinds of knowledge Show less
Is it ethical to freely redistribute photographs taken in colonial contexts, historically and today? Showing the complexities behind this question, this study looks at how a vast media network... Show moreIs it ethical to freely redistribute photographs taken in colonial contexts, historically and today? Showing the complexities behind this question, this study looks at how a vast media network evolved around the commercial photographic studio at Mariannhill Monastery and the mission station Centocow in South Africa from the 1880s until today. Taking a grass-roots perspective, it argues that photographs produced by missionaries, like all colonial photographs, must be studied by considering their interconnectedness: first, their alliances with other media, like paintings, theatre plays, tableaux vivants, maps, films, exhibitions, and “ethnographic” objects; second, the exhibitionary complex they depend on, involving museums, libraries, archives, and printing presses; and finally the lobbies, journals, printed instructions, discourses, and interpretive communities that produced, used, and consumed them. Eventually, the study turns to the crucial question how photographs act on and as subjects. Few colonial photographs have left sufficient traces that allow to write their biographies. Mariannhill’s photographs, however, due to their aesthetic aspiration and the congregation’s unique setup, have successfully taken root in many places, moments, and discourses. To show the photographs’ ongoing relevance for stakeholders in both South Africa and Europe, and possible ways of dealing with them today, this study follows their intermediary role over time and in between other images, spaces, objects, and subjects. Show less
Mapping Moving Media is an inquiry into the specificity of film and video. In this study, I argue that mapping the specificity of these two media is indispensable in analyzing and understanding... Show moreMapping Moving Media is an inquiry into the specificity of film and video. In this study, I argue that mapping the specificity of these two media is indispensable in analyzing and understanding contemporary intermedial objects in which film and video are mixed or combined. Our understanding of the meanings and effects of moving images in contemporary society will increase when combinations of film- and video elements within moving image objects are taken into account. Contemporary (new) media theory offers a wide range of terms by which interrelations between media can be defined and conceptualized. However, although I take the wide variety of notions such as remediation and hypermediacy as helpful tools in analyzing the relationships between media, I argue that the starting point of an investigation into intermedial interactions should be the concept of medium specificity instead of the many notions which define forms of intermediality. This does not mean that we should return to some of essentialist ideas on medium specificity which have been attached to the concept. However, the rightful conclusion that essentialist ideas on medium specificity are rendered untenable by today’s mixed, multi-, and intermedia, too often overshadows the question of what is being mixed, expanded, remediated, refashioned, converged or combined. In this study I ask the questions “what is meant by video?” and “what is meant by film?” How are these two media (to be) understood? Can film and video be defined as distinct, specific media, and if so, how? I hold that in this era of mixed moving media, it is vital to ask these questions precisely and especially on the media of video and film. Show less
The artistic PhD research "Shifting Identities" investigates the musicians' professional identity and how this identity might shift when musicians start acting as theatrical performers. In most of... Show moreThe artistic PhD research "Shifting Identities" investigates the musicians' professional identity and how this identity might shift when musicians start acting as theatrical performers. In most of the theatrical situations where musicians "perform", their profession is extended by additional tasks such as walking on stage or reciting text. As an alternative strategy to extension, this research introduces and focuses on reduction, which means the abstracting away of specific qualities or abilities of the musician's profession. The audience watches musicians not doing certain things that usually belong to their profession. Both the expansive and the reductive approaches are concepts of working theatrically with musicians. They are different, perhaps even contradictory strategies, but both bear the ability to enrich the musician's professional identity with a more theatrical appearance. In order to build an understanding of what is extended or reduced when the identity shifts from a musician to a theatrical (musician-)performer a dynamic model is developed which builds strongly on what musicians actually do, a model that categorises the musician's professional activities into internal, external and contextual elements. Show less
When listeners talk about their listening experiences, they often refer to music as if it were a narrative. But can music actually tell a story? Can music be narrative? Traditionally, narrativity... Show moreWhen listeners talk about their listening experiences, they often refer to music as if it were a narrative. But can music actually tell a story? Can music be narrative? Traditionally, narrativity is associated with verbal and visual texts, and the mere possibility of musical narrativity is highly debated. In this study, Vincent Meelberg demonstrates that music can indeed be narrative, and that the study of musical narrativity can be very productive. Moreover, Meelberg even makes a stronger claim by contending that contemporary music, too, can be narrative. More specifically, Meelberg suggests considering contemporary musical narratives as metanarratives, i.e. narratives that tell the story of the process of narrativization Show less
