We Need to Write about Art: Ekphrasis Now 

A one-day symposium on contemporary ekphrasis at Leeds Trinity University on Saturday 6 July 2024.

While James A. W. Heffernan’s monograph, Museum of Words: The Poetics of Ekphrasis from Homer to Ashbery (1991), remains one of the most influential works on ekphrasis, his definition of ekphrasis as “the verbal representation of visual representation” is becoming increasingly inadequate. Indeed, recent years have seen something of a return to its eighteenth-century meaning, more generally connoting description of – or commentary upon – any work of art in any medium. The growth in new media has led to new ekphrastic approaches which continue to inform and reframe more traditional practices.

Organisers Prof Oz Hardwick (Leeds Trinity University) and Cassandra Atherton (Deakin University) invite 200-word proposals for 20-minute papers on contemporary ekphrasis relating to artworks in diverse media, which may include – but is not limited to – visual arts, dance, music, sculpture, photography, architecture, digital arts, television, or cinema.