Session at International Medieval Congress (IMC) 2019 (Special Thematic Strand: 'Materialities'), Leeds

The proposed session will discuss and debate on the various definitions and functions of the concept of “ugliness.” What is ugliness and how is it conceptualized? This session seeks original research which investigates debates on the concept of “ugliness” in various contexts:

  • Spiritual/physical/material ugliness;
  • Paradoxical nature of ugliness/irony/allegorical discourse;
  • Emotions and ugliness;
  • Functional aspects/Contrasts/Status and ugliness;
  • Didactic/moralistic functions;
  • Gendered aspects: ugliness belonging to other creatures; 
  • Description/nature/character of ugliness;
  • Symbolism and patterns of transmission;
  • Comparative aspects of medieval beauty and ugliness;
  • Beauty within the context of ugliness in visual and textual sources;

This session also aims to bring its intellectual outcomes into the attention of the general public by publishing, contextually, the proceedings of the debates in the series “Picturing the Middle Ages and Early Modernity” at Trivent Publishing, Budapest, Hungary.

Please submit a working title and a 250-word proposal for a 15-20 minute paper presentation by September 15th, 2018, the latest.

Contact information:
Andrea-Bianka Znorovszky, Ca’ Foscari University, Venice, Italy ([email protected])
Teodora C. Artimon, Trivent Publishing, Budapest, Hungary ([email protected])