Location: S.S209 ARIA attic, Lange Sint-Annastraat 7, 2000 Antwerp
Time: 14h30-17h, unless communicated otherwise
Target audience: junior academic and artistic researchers
What impact do (new) visual media and technologies have on our gaze? To what extent do they influence beauty ideals and even (pseudo) science? By means of the texts below, we investigate how visual media (such as theatre, illustrated magazines, film, television) and new technologies (such as gas lighting, photography and face-recognition technology) not only affect representations of faces on paper, stage and screen, but also identity formation and (pseudo) science.
Preparatory readings
- Pearl, Sharrona. “Building Beauty: Physiognomy on the Gas-Lit Stage”, Endeavour, 30.4 (2006), 84-89.
- Gunning, Tom. “In Your Face: Physiognomy, Photography, and the Gnostic Mission of Early Film”, Modernism/Modernity, 4.1 (1997), 1-29.
- Wegenstein, Bernadette, and Nora Ruck. “Physiognomy, Reality Television and the Cosmetic Gaze”, Body and Society, 17.4, 27-54.
Evelien Jonckheere
is an FWO postdoctoral researcher and member of the B-magic-team at the University of Antwerp. In her research project “Physiognomic culture in popular performance: on the use of stereo-“types” in fin-de-siecle Brussels” (funded by the FWO since 1 November 2021) she investigates popular performance (cabaret, fairground, circus, variety theatre and different kinds of café-culture) in relation to arts and legitimate theatre. Her PhD, an investigation of the tensions between the Belgian café-concert, variety theatre and official theatre, was defended at Ghent University in 2014, and awarded and published by Leuven University Press in 2017. She published several articles, book chapters and books on popular entertainment and artistic practices in fin-de-siecle Belgium.