Written Artefacts and the Body

Project Group

This Project Group focuses on the relation between the materiality of WAs and the human body. We examine how the scribe’s physical presence and the corporeal act of inscription impacts WAs from three angles: expressive, normative, and objective. The expressive aspect considers how a scribe’s physical condition influences the material features of WAs. The normative perspective looks at conventions – as benchmarks for specific cultural writing practices across time – that govern the scribe’s posture, scribal techniques, and writing habits. The objective element explores situations in which the body becomes an integral component of WAs.

Given the lack of a comprehensive scholarly approaches integrating body-related discourses and writing practices in WA studies, we investigate scribal and bodily practices in global contexts through emic and etic lenses, utilizing case studies and kinematic models. Our three-year program will result in a co-edited volume providing a cross-disciplinary framework for studying corporeality and WAs and will make use also of knowledge exchange formats emphasizing bodily techniques and abilities involved in the production of WAs.