Engagement with the image has played a decisive role in the formulation of the very idea of philosophy since Plato. Identifying pivotal moments in the history of philosophy, Dennis J. Schmidt develops the question of philosophy's regard of the image in thinking by considering painting—where the image most clearly calls attention to itself as an image. Focusing on Heidegger and the work of Paul Klee, Schmidt pursues larger issues in the relationship between word, image, and truth. As he investigates alternative ways of thinking about truth through word and image, Schmidt shows how the form of art can indeed possess the capacity to change its viewers.

"Challenge: Create an image out of a word, using only the letters in the word itself. Rule: Use only the graphic elements of the letters without adding outside parts. Word as Image invites you to see letters beyond their utilitarian dullness. It's about discovering the magic behind the unique shapes and infinite possibilities of letters and words. This book showcases nearly 100 of Ji Lee's head-scratching word images, along with tips to help you create your own and share them at www.wordasimage.com."--Page 4 of cover.

A highly illustrated survey of the use of words (or language) in art. Art, Word and Image asks what it means when a painting is 'invaded' by language - how do the two forms converse and combine, and what messages are intended for the viewer?

Christianity proclaims Christ and the incarnate word of God; the Bible is described as the Word of God in both Jewish and Christian tradition. Are these usages merely homonymous, or would the ancients have recognized a more intimate relation between the word incarnate and the word proclaimed? This book investigates the concept of logos in pagan, Jewish and Christian thought, with a view to elucidating the polyphonic functions which the word acquired when used in theological discourse. Edwards presents a survey of theological applications of the term Logos in Greek, Jewish and Christian thought from Plato to Augustine and Proclus. Special focus is placed on: the relation of words to images in representation of divine realm, the relation between the logos within (reason) and the logos without (speech) both in linguistics and in Christology, the relation between the incarnate Word and the written text, and the place of reason in the interpretation of revelation. Bringing together materials which are rarely synthesized in modern study, this book shows how Greek and biblical thought part company in their appraisal of the capacity of reason to grasp the nature of God, and how in consequence verbal revelation plays a more significant role in biblical teaching. Edwards shows how this entailed the rejection of images in Jewish and Christian thought, and how the manifestation in flesh of Christ as the living word of God compelled the church to reconsider both the relation of word to image and the interplay between the logos within and the written logos in the formulation of Christian doctrine.

"Focussing on both traditional and modern media (theatre, fiction, poetry, graphic art, cinema), the essays of Reading Images and Seeing Words show how it is according to signifying codes (rhetoric, poetics, metaphor), that meaning and knowledge are produced. Not the least value of this collection is the insight it gives into the multiple models of word / image interaction and the rich ambiguity of the tautological and oxymoronic relations they embody."--BOOK JACKET.

Based on papers presented at the Fifth Triennial Conference of the International Association of Word and Image Studies (IAWIS/AERTI) held in 2002 in Hamburg, the twenty-two essays in this volume cover a wide array of intermedial relations and a great variety of media, from medieval architecture to interactive digital art. They have been arranged in sections labeled "History and Identity," "Cultural Memory," "Texts and Photographs: Cultural Anthropology and Cultural Memory," "Mixed-Media Texts: Cartography in Contemporary Art and Fiction," "Mixed-Media Texts: 'Yellow-Cover Books', Artists' Books, and Comics," "Intermedia Texts: Logotypes," and "Space, Spatialization, Virtual Space." Displaying a range of methods and interests, these contributions by scholars from Europe, the United States, and South America working in different disciplines confirm the impression voiced by IAWIS president Charlotte Schoell-Glass in her introduction that "the influence of Visual and Cultural Studies has changed the outlook of many who study the interactions of texts and images".

The imaginary as a critical concept originated in the twentieth century and has been theorized in diverse ways. It can be understood as a register of thought; the way we interpret the world; the universe of images, signs, texts, and objects of thought. In this volume, it is explored as it manifests itself in encounters between the verbal and the visual. A number of the essays brought together here explore the transposition of the imaginary in illustrations of texts and verbal renditions of images, as well as in comic books based on paintings or on verbal narratives. Others analyze ways in which books deal with film or television and investigate the imaginary in digital media. Special attention is paid to the imaginary of places and the relationship of the imaginary with memory. Written in English and French, these contributions by European and American scholars demonstrate the various concerns and approaches characteristic of contemporary scholarship in word and image studies.