Picturing Silence : Emblem, Language, Counter-Reformation Materiality

Picturing Silence: Emblem, Language, Counter-Reformation Materiality offers a materialist account of the making and dissemination of Renaissance emblems - symbolic forms combining words and pictures. During the early sixteenth century, humanists began to publish collections of emblems, primarily for an erudite audience. Karen Pinkus examines the social context for such collections and provides a reading of key examples of the genre, illuminating our understanding of gender relations, economics, homosociality, "the gaze," homicide and blood guilt, and the body within humanist ideology. Pinkus grounds her discussion in a historical understanding of the Counter-Reformation period; at the same time she considers the emblematic form in a more general and philosophical sense, linking the humanist emblem to baseball cards and to the modern advertisement, as a call to consume.
Part of a growing body of theoretically informed writings in Italian Renaissance Studies, Picturing Silence is unique in its attempt to weave together Renaissance and postmodern considerations of representation. It should appeal to specialists in a variety of disciplines, including art history, cultural studies, feminist studies, and media studies.

Karen Pinkus is Assistant Professor of Italian and Comparative Literature, Northwestern University.