Book Review

The future of text and image: collected essays on literary and visual conjunctures.

Abstract

The publication of Ofra Amihay and Lauren Walsh’s edited volume, The future of text and image, is a sure indication that the study of the relationship between the textual and the visual has grown into an independent academic discipline. With a foreword by WJT Mitchell and an afterword by Marianne Hirsch, whose contributions to the founding discourse in this field are well-known, this timely book brings together essays from scholars who investigate literary and visual conjunctures in diverse forms and contexts. The editors explain that the book aims to ‘shed light not only on the future of text and image as an independent discipline’ but also to present ideas about the destiny of the ‘role and place’ of that discipline in various scholarly fields, informed by the ways in which new technological forms and practices have and may influence this relationship in the future (p. viii). In line with this aim, the contributors represent a diversity of intellectual fields including literary studies, cultural studies, art history, media studies, graphic design/communication design and digital studies, amongst others.