by Jon Lackman | 18 February 2009 | Journals, Medieval
A new online-only periodical Different Visions: A Journal of New Perspectives on Medieval Art, has been launched, with Rachel Dressler of the University at Albany as editor. Virginia Blanton, Richard Emmerson, Corine Schleif, Linda Seidel, Debra Higgs Strickland, and Christine Verzar round out the editorial board. It is an
open-access, peer-reviewed annual, devoted to progressive scholarship on medieval art. Different Visions seeks to fill a significant gap in current publishing venues by featuring articles employing contemporary postmodern and poststructuralist theoretical frameworks to examine medieval visual culture. Authors are encouraged to explore the application of such approaches as feminist and gender analysis, historiography, semiotics, post colonialism and queer theory to works produced during the period from the fourth through the fifteenth century. The journal will also consider essays on medieval visual culture that emerge from multiple disciplinary perspectives.
Different Visions offers a central publication to serve authors and readers interested in the full gamut of medieval objects and in contemporary critical theory. The journal covers the entire range of visual culture—architecture, manuscripts, sculpture, stained glass, and portable arts—and accepts articles about Byzantine and Islamic cultures as well as central, eastern and western Europe. Its electronic format provides a low-cost delivery, allowing Different Visions to avoid a subscription charge and permits more illustrations at less expense than standard print media. It also offers new opportunities for such innovative features as audio clips and virtual tours of monuments.
Dressler says she was inspired to start the journal by Sarah Blick and Rita Tekippe, who founded the online scholarly journal Peregrinations devoted to pilgrimage art and architecture of the late Middle Ages.
“Postmodern and poststructuralist” – uh-oh.
Why uh-oh? Hopefully this will spur more medievalists to expand their investigations to incorporate contemporary theoretical discourse in the humanities. Certainly, when this is done poorly, it’s pretty painful, but when it’s done well (ala Michael Camille) it can produce some extremely thought-provoking work.