Although the term incorporation (and its cognates in many Latinate languages) often functions metaphorically, its ability to denote the integration of any two entities is intimately linked to the centrality of the body, the corpus. Reflecting the recent material and sensory turns across the humanities, this two-day event is intended to highlight a range of practices in which words and images were consumed by being taken into the body, quite literally incorporated. Whether undertaken for the purposes of memorization, prophylaxis, or chastisement (all are documented), such practices imply that certain kinds of images and words can be so fully consumed as to be incorporated into the human body, to become part of its very substance.

Practices of logophagy (the ingestion of words) and iconophagy (the ingestion of images) presuppose a very different relationship between images, words and bodies than the pious practices of looking associated with the modern gallery and museum. Although common to many cultures, they have often been depicted as anomalous, marginal or primitive within a post-Enlightenment tradition that has privileged the disincarnated gaze as the culturally sanctioned mode of consumption. By contrast, this pioneering collaboration between NYU’s Institute of Fine Arts and the University of Fribourg will highlight concepts and practices of consumption through incorporation drawn from a range of traditions, exploring the phenomenon in a comparative transhistorical and transcultural frame.

Support for this event is provided by the Institute of Fine Arts’ Gulnar Bosch Fund

Program