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Sound and vision : Bruno Latour and the languages of Philippe de Thaon’s Bestiaire
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Campbell, Emma (2020) Sound and vision : Bruno Latour and the languages of Philippe de Thaon’s Bestiaire. Romanic Review, 111 (1). pp. 128-150. doi:10.1215/00358118-8007985 ISSN 0035-8118.
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Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1215/00358118-8007985
Abstract
As moralized works of natural history that are simultaneously scientific and religious, medieval bestiaries combine the modes Bruno Latour terms reference [REF] and religion [REL]. Bestiaries challenge the dualisms Latour identifies as central features of Modern thinking: they foreground the mediated nature of the world, they ground their descriptions in textual traditions and religious doctrine rather than direct observation, and they represent nature as articulate rather than mute. Latour’s modes help us understand the multimodal nature of bestiaries in ways that refuse the Modern preconceptions that often determine the reception of these texts today. Bestiaries in turn expose certain Modern biases that persist in Latour’s modes of existence, most notably in the crossing of the referential and religious modes [REF•REL]. This essay explores the larger implications of this problem by focusing on the operations of the religious mode [REL] in medieval bestiaries—a mode that includes reference [REF] but does not cross with it as a separate mode. Latour’s dismantling of the Modern opposition between world and words invites a reassessment of how we conceptualize the agency of language in the modes of existence.
| Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||||
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| Subjects: | B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > B Philosophy (General) D History General and Old World > D History (General) > D111 Medieval History P Language and Literature > PC Romance languages P Language and Literature > PQ Romance literatures |
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| Divisions: | Faculty of Arts > School of Modern Languages and Cultures > French Studies | ||||||
| Journal or Publication Title: | Romanic Review | ||||||
| Publisher: | Duke University Press | ||||||
| ISSN: | 0035-8118 | ||||||
| Official Date: | 1 May 2020 | ||||||
| Dates: |
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| Volume: | 111 | ||||||
| Number: | 1 | ||||||
| Page Range: | pp. 128-150 | ||||||
| DOI: | 10.1215/00358118-8007985 | ||||||
| Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||
| Publication Status: | Published | ||||||
| Access rights to Published version: | Restricted or Subscription Access | ||||||
| Date of first compliant deposit: | 13 March 2019 | ||||||
| Date of first compliant Open Access: | 12 May 2020 | ||||||
| Related URLs: |
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