Scientific and cultural heritage heralded at conference

Dundee’s scientific and cultural contribution will be invoked at a major international conference held in the city this month.

From Monday 11th to Friday, 15th August, the Scottish Word and Image Group (SWIG) at the University of Dundee will be hosting the Triennial Conference of the International Association of Word and Image Studies (IAWIS/AIERTI). Dundee will be the first UK destination for the Triennial, following previous conferences in Montreal, Philadelphia, Paris, Amsterdam, Hamburg and Zürich.

This year’s theme is ‘Riddles of Form: Exploration and Discovery in Word and Image’, and the conference will examine representation of science and technology in text, poetry, art, popular culture, film, print and digital media. Over a hundred academics from all over the UK, Europe and the Americas will visit the University for the event.

Dundee’s history and reputation in both sciences and arts means the location is ideally suited to the theme, and the conference will specifically invoke the city’s scientific and cultural legacy through the foundational work of D'Arcy Thompson and Patrick Geddes.

SWIG Chair Dr Keith Williams said, “It is an honour for Dundee to be hosting this conference and we look forward to welcoming esteemed colleagues from around the world and to be able to showcase Dundee’s proud history of exploration and technological innovation.

“However, the conference's approach to 'science' is in no sense limited to the Anglophone tradition defining it in the narrower sense of the natural sciences, but will restore and celebrate the full range of its original humanistic associations. Hence it features papers on all kinds of human knowledge, enquiry and analysis, and how they are conceptualised, conducted or communicated through forms of verbal and visual media.”

Keynote speakers are Martin Kemp, Emeritus Professor of the History of Art at the University of Oxford, and Professor Calum Colvin, Programme Director in Art and Media at the University of Dundee. Delegates will have the option to visit Little Sparta, the garden left in trust by the world-renowned ‘avant-gardener’ and word-image artist, Ian Hamilton Finlay, while a series of special exhibitions of highlights from the University’s collections will take place.

These include items related to Patrick Geddes, the former Chair of Botany at University College Dundee who is regarded as the father of town planning, and D'Arcy Thompson, Dundee’s first Professor of Biology whose work has inspired artists, scientist and philosophers among others.

Founded in July 1987, the International Association of Word and Image Studies / Association Internationale pour l’Etude des Rapports entre Texte et Image (IAWIS/AIERTI) seeks to foster the study of Word and Image relations in a general cultural context and especially in the arts in the broadest sense.

The Scottish Word & Image Group (SWIG) was formed in 1994 and has established itself as a home for academics and artists who seek to promote word and image enquiries in analysis and criticism. Since 2004 the group has been based at the University of Dundee.

The interaction between verbal/written language and visual or symbolic forms is one of the most important features of everyday human activity, touching almost every aspect of communication. Consequently, word and image studies attract attention from a diverse range of disciplines, including art and art history, philosophy, literature, critical theory, linguistics, geography, social anthropology, ethnography, media studies, drama and film studies, cultural history, psychology and sociology.

More information is available by contacting Dr Williams on k.b.williams@dundee.ac.uk or SWIG Secretary Dr Chris Murray on c.murray@dundee.ac.uk.