The Art of the Periodical
Session will present: In-Person

Max Koss, Leuphana University Lüneburg
Email Address(s): maxkoss@uchicago.edu

The recent effervescence of periodical studies has led to a renewed interest in the role of periodicals in the history of art, not only as platforms for disseminating text and images but as objects with artistic qualities in and of themselves. This panel seeks to address this ontological duality of periodicals by soliciting papers dealing with the material nature of periodicals, their design, their production, and the circumstances of their reception, as they relate to the periodicals’ dimension as artworks.

As a quintessentially modern medium, periodicals occupy a liminal position in many humanities disciplines. Still, they are at the same time only graspable in their totality with the application of a multi-perspectival methodology that considers their multimodal nature as a medium combining text with image in potentially endless variations.

This panel, however, wants to approach periodicals with an art historical eye, a hitherto neglected angle from which to describe and analyze this form of printed matter. A particular focus is the "facture" of periodicals, specifically the sources and origins of their materials, not least paper, and their relative expense or cheapness, as well as the economy of reproductive technologies used to print and illustrate periodicals.

The panel welcomes contributions that address any kind of periodical or group of periodicals from the late eighteenth century onwards. The panel particularly welcomes proposals on periodicals produced and distributed in the global South and those produced by marginalized groups, including, but not limited to, women, BIPoC, and LGBTQIA.